Word.ws English Dictionary

groom

/ɡɹuːm/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/ɡɹʉwm/

groom noun: a man who is about to marry.

Noun (1)

groom (plural grooms)

  1. A man who is about to marry.
    Synonyms:
    bridegroom

Noun (2)

groom (plural grooms)

  1. A person who looks after horses.
    • Toward the end of the war, Benoit was sent off on his own with forged papers; he wound up working as a horse groom at a chalet in the Loire valley. Mandelbrot describes this harrowing youth with great sangfroid.2013 January, Brian Hayes, “Father of Fractals”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 1, page 62
  2. One of several officers of the English royal household, chiefly in the lord chamberlain's department.
    • the groom of the chamber; the groom of the stole
  3. (archaic) A male servant, or more generally, a common man.
    • The needy groom, that never finger'd groat,
      Would make a miracle of thus much coin …c. 1589–1590 (date written), Christopher Marlo[we], edited by Tho[mas] Heywood, The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Iew of Malta. […], London: […] I[ohn] B[eale] for Nicholas Vavasour, […], published...
    • Going into the hall he saw a handsome groom, in a braided livery and a bear fur cape, holding a white fur cloak.1901 [1878], chapter 19, in Constance Garnett, transl., Anna Karenina, translation of Анна Каренина (Anna Karenina) by Leo Tolstoy, part 4
  4. A brushing or cleaning, as of a dog or horse.
    • Give the mare a quick groom before you take her out.

Verb

groom (third-person singular simple present grooms, present participle grooming, simple past and past participle groomed)

  1. To attend to one's appearance and clothing.
    Synonyms:
    primp
  2. (transitive) To care for (horses or other animals) by brushing and cleaning them.
    • 2010 (April 20) "The Collection" s1e6 of TV series Justified
      The wife didn't care about riding, but Owen did. Well, he cared about me. I went from doing everything — grooming, feeding, looking out — to being handed the reins of the most magnificent creatures ready to ride.
    • Rabbits show dominance by demanding to be groomed, while cats show dominance by grooming the other. A perfect relationship 💕2026 July 5, @contemprainn.bsky.social, Bluesky (post), archived from the original on 06 Jul 2026
  3. (obsolete, transitive) To care for (horses or other animals) by feeding, currying and tending to them.
  4. (transitive) To prepare (someone) for an event
    • It appears that Broderick's seconds, although cool, brave men, were entirely without experience in arranging a duel, and did not know that a man should be groomed for one as carefully as a horse is groomed for a race.1912, The Contest for California in 1861: How Colonel E.D. Baker Saved the Pacific States to the Union, page 51
  5. (transitive) To prepare (someone) for election or appointment.
    • It is of special interest to note the subjects considered as important to those who are being groomed for top administrative posts1953, The President's Report to the Board of Regents for the Academic Year page 146
    • Our mission is to unfreeze those clones, send them back to high school, and secretly groom them to one day rule the world.
      Failure to do so could mean world leaders just keep getting worse.2002, Clone High episode 1 - "Escape to Beer Mountain: A Rope of Sand"
  6. (transitive) To gain, or attempt to gain, the trust of a child or vulnerable person in order to take advantage of or exploit them, especially sexually (if under the age of consent).
    • 2009, Suzanne Ost, Child Pornography and Sexual Grooming: Legal and Societal Responses
  7. (transitive) In agile software development, to review and prioritize the items in the development backlog.
  8. (transitive) To prepare (a ski slope) for skiers by packing down the snow.

Proper noun capitalized: Groom

Groom (countable and uncountable, plural Grooms)

  1. An English surname originating as an occupation for a servant.
  2. A town in Carson County, Texas, United States.

groom meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

groom in Hindi

groom, bridegroom
दूल्हा dūlhā
to groom
घिसना ghisnā

groom in Tamil

மணமகன், குதிரைப்பாகன்

groom in Marathi

वराला

groom in Urdu

دولہا, گھوڑے کا رکھ والا, نوجوان, سائیس, گھوڑے کی رکھوالی کرنا, تربیت دینا
More languagesFewer languages
groom in Telugu
వరుడు
groom in Malayalam
മണവാളൻ maṇavāḷaṉ
groom in Kannada
ಮದುಮಗ, ಪಳಗಿಸು, ಅಂದಗೊಳಿಸು
groom in Punjabi
کڑا kuṛā
groom in Gujarati
વર var
groom in Sanskrit
कुमार kumārá, किरात kirāta
groom in Assamese
দৰা dora
groom in Nepali
दूल्हा
groom in Arabic
سَائِس sāʔis, سَاس sās, هَندَم

Examples of groom in a sentence

  • 2009, Dani Johnson, Grooming the Next Generation for Success
  • India is run by gerontocrats and epigones: grey hairs and groomed heirs.2013 May 11, “What a waste”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8835, page 12:

All 40 example sentences with groom

Synonyms of groom

All synonyms of groom

Forms of groom

Noun
pluralgrooms
Verb
third-person singular presentgrooms
present participlegrooming
past participlegroomed
pastgroomed
Proper noun
pluralGrooms
alternative formGroome

Past tense of groom: groomed

Plural of groom: grooms

Origin of groom

1604, short for bridegroom (“husband-to-be”), from Middle English brydgrome, alteration (with intrusive r) of earlier bridegome (“bridegroom”), from Old English brȳdguma (“bridegroom”), from brȳd (“bride”) + guma (“man, hero”). In Middle English, the second element was re-analyzed as or influenced by grom, grome (“attendant”). Guma derives from Proto-Germanic *gumô (“man, person”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰǵʰm̥mō; it is cognate to Icelandic gumi (cf. Icelandic brúðgumi) and Norwegian gume and, ultimately, human.

From Middle English grom, grome (“man-child, boy, youth”), of uncertain origin. Apparently related to Middle Dutch grom (“boy”), Old Icelandic grómr, gromr (“man, manservant, boy”), Old French gromme (“manservant”), and also to Middle Dutch grom (“fish guts”), Middle Low German grôm (“fish guts”), from the same Proto-Germanic root. Possibly from Old English *grōm, from Proto-West Germanic *grōm (“swollen belly, stomach tumour, womb-child, fish roe, fish guts”), from Proto-Germanic *grōaną (“to grow”). Alternative etymology describes Middle English grom, grome as an alteration of gome (“man”) with an intrusive r (also found in bridegroom, hoarse, cartridge, etc.), with the Middle Dutch and Old Icelandic cognates following similar variation of their respective forms.

Words formed from groom

Words that rhyme with groom

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about groom

What does groom mean?
Groom means a man who is about to marry.
What is groom in Hindi?
Groom in Hindi is दूल्हा (dūlhā), घिसना (ghisnā). See Groom meaning in Hindi.
How do you use groom in a sentence?
2009, Dani Johnson, Grooming the Next Generation for Success
What part of speech is groom?
Groom can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce groom?
Groom is pronounced /ɡɹuːm/ (UK).
What is the plural of groom?
The plural of groom is grooms.

Words near groom in the dictionary

  1. Gronski
  2. Gronskis
  3. grook
  4. grooks
  5. grool
  6. groom
  7. Groom Lake
  8. groom of the stool
  9. groom's cake
  10. groom-in-waiting
  11. groom-porter

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: groom (page history and authors); Groom (page history and authors); घिसना (Hindi) (page history and authors); groom (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); groom (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); groom (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); groom (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); മണവാളൻ (Malayalam) (page history and authors); groom (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); کڑا (Punjabi) (page history and authors); વર (Gujarati) (page history and authors); किरात (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); দৰা (Assamese) (page history and authors); groom (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: En-us-groom.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-groom.wav.

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