Word.ws English Dictionary

grim reaper

UK/ˈɡɹɪm ˈɹiː.pə//ˈɡɹɪm ˈɹi.pɚ/

grim reaper is the alternative letter-case form of Grim Reaper.

Proper noun capitalized: Grim Reaper

the Grim Reaper (plural Grim Reapers)

  1. A personification of Death as an old man, or a skeleton, carrying a scythe, taking souls to the afterlife.
    • Her husband was dead, and Werper fancied that he could replace in the girl’s heart the position which had been vacated by the act of the grim reaper.1916, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar
    • "Golly, I feel like the devil!" muttered Anthony dispassionately. Relaxing, he tumbled back upon his pillow. "Bring on your grim reaper!"1922, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, book 2, page 220

Synonyms of grim reaper

Forms of grim reaper

pluralgrim reapers
pluralGrim Reapers
alternative formgrim reaper

Origin of grim reaper

From grim + reaper, first attested 1847. The word grim previously had a stronger meaning ("fierce, angry, sinister") and had more of an association with ghostliness (compare Old English grima (“specter, apparition”), English grim (n.)). The association between grim and death dates back to at least the late 16th century (the line "grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image" appears in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew around 1590). The reaper element comes from the personification of Death as a reaper (harvester) of souls in connection to the popular depiction of Death wielding a scythe. The symbol of the scythe itself comes from a partially unintentional conflation of Cronus (the Titan associated with the harvest, said to have used his scythe to castrate his father Uranus) and Chronos (the personification of Father Time).

Words formed from grim reaper

Questions about grim reaper

What does grim reaper mean?
Grim reaper means a personification of Death as an old man, or a skeleton, carrying a scythe, taking souls to the afterlife.
What is grim reaper the alternative letter-case form of?
Grim reaper is the alternative letter-case form of Grim Reaper.
What part of speech is grim reaper?
Grim reaper is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce grim reaper?
Grim reaper is pronounced /ˈɡɹɪm ˈɹiː.pə/ (UK).

Words near grim reaper in the dictionary

  1. grils
  2. grilse
  3. grilses
  4. grilt
  5. grim
  6. grim reaper
  7. Grim Reaper paradox
  8. grim reapers
  9. grim trigger
  10. grim triggers
  11. grim-gram

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: grim reaper (page history and authors); Grim Reaper (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Grim Reaper.wav.

Cite this entry: “grim reaper.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/grim_reaper. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.