Word.ws English Dictionary

gross

UK/ɡɹəʊs//ɡɹoʊs/

gross adjective: remarkably great, big, vast in an often unpleasant way; (of behaviour) Highly or conspicuously offensive.

Adjective

gross (comparative grosser or more gross, superlative grossest or most gross)

  1. remarkably great, big, vast in an often unpleasant way; (of behaviour) Highly or conspicuously offensive.
    • a gross mistake; gross injustice; gross negligence; a gross insult
    • Henry IV. My gracious uncle, let me know my fault: / On what condition stands it and wherein? / Edmund of Langley. Even in condition of the worst degree, / In gross rebellion and detested treason:1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to...
  2. Excluding any deductions; including all associated amounts.
    • gross domestic product; gross income; gross weight
    • What is the gross sum that I owe thee?c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]. Epilogue.”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […]...
    Antonyms:
    net
  3. Seen without a microscope (usually for a tissue or an organ); at a large scale; not detailed.
    • gross anatomy
    • We are accustomed to look for the gross and immediate effect and to ignore all else. Unless this appears promptly and in such obvious form that it cannot be ignored, we deny the existence of hazard.1962, Rachel Carson, chapter 12, in Silent Spring, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, page 190
    Synonyms:
    macroscopic
    Antonyms:
    microscopic
  4. (Australia, Canada, US, informal) Causing disgust.
    • I threw up all over the bed. It was totally gross.
    • Mary Ann spent her lunch hour at Hastings, picking out just the right tie for Norman. The hint might not be terribly subtle, she decided, but somebody had to do something about that gross, gravy-stained clip-on number.1978, Armistead Maupin, “Ties That Bind”, in Tales of the City, New York: Harper & Row, published 1989, page 293
  5. Lacking refinement in behaviour or manner; offending a standard of morality.
    • Pog. Forsooth my Maister said that hee loved her almost as well as hee loved parmasent, and swore […] that shee wanted such a Nose as his was, to be as pretty a young woeman, as was any in Parma. Do. Oh grose!c. 1626 or 1629–1633 (first performance), [John Ford], ’Tis Pitty Shee’s a Whore […], London: […] Nicholas Okes for Richard Collins, […], published 1633, →OCLC, Act I
    • Verjuice. She certainly has Talents. / Lady Sneerwell. But her manner is gross.1777 May 8 (first performance), [Richard Brinsley Sheridan], The School for Scandal; a Comedy; […], Dublin: [s.n.], published 1780, →OCLC, (please specify the page)
  6. Lacking refinement; not of high quality.
    • The flowers of Rubens are gross and rude […]1860, John Ruskin, chapter 10, in Modern Painters […], volume V, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, , § 5
    • He scorned my wholesome kennel fare, toothing out dainties and leaving the grosser portions to be finished by the other dogs.1944, Emily Carr, “Lorenzo Was Registered”, in The House of All Sorts
    Synonyms:
    coarse, rough, unrefined
    Antonyms:
    fine
  7. Dense, heavy.
    • ⁠Thy spirit ere our fatal loss / ⁠Did ever rise from high to higher; / ⁠As mounts the heavenward altar-fire, / As flies the lighter thro’ the gross.1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XL”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 62
  8. Heavy in proportion to one's height; having a lot of excess flesh.
    • Kitty noticed that her sister’s pregnancy had blunted her features and in her black dress she looked gross and blousy.1925, W. Somerset Maugham, chapter 79, in The Painted Veil, London: Heinemann, published 1934
    • He collected a number of injuries that stopped him jousting, and then in middle age became stout, eventually gross.2013, Hilary Mantel, “Royal Bodies”, in London Review of Books, 35.IV
    Synonyms:
    great, large, bulky, fat, obese
  9. (poetic) Difficult or impossible to see through.
    • Couragious Lancaster, imbrace thy king, / And as grosse vapours perish by the sunne, / Euen so let hatred with thy soueraigne smile,1594, Christopher Marlow[e], The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Henry Bell, […], published 1622, →OCLC...
    • For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Isaiah 60:2
    Synonyms:
    thick, heavy
  10. (archaic) Not sensitive in perception or feeling.
    • For he is groſſe and like the maſſie earth, / That mooues not vpwards, nor by princely deeds / Doth meane to ſoare aboue the highest ſort.c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...
    • For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 13:15
    Synonyms:
    dull, witless
  11. (obsolete) Easy to perceive.
    • […] though the truth of it stands off as gross / As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it.1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
    Synonyms:
    obvious, clear

Noun

gross (countable and uncountable, plural gross or grosses)

  1. Twelve dozen = 144.
    • We need to order three gross of torx screws for next week.
  2. The total amount (of goods, money, etc) before taxes, expenses, exceptions, tares, or similar deductions are subtracted.
  3. The bulk; the mass.

Verb

gross (third-person singular simple present grosses, present participle grossing, simple past and past participle grossed)

  1. (transitive) To earn money, not including expenses.
    • The movie grossed three million on the first weekend.
    • The film grossed $464 million worldwide, ensconcing her in the Hollywood A-list.2014 January 21, Hermione Hoby, “Julia Roberts interview for August: Osage County – 'I might actually go to hell for this ...': Julia Roberts reveals why her violent, Oscar-nominated performance in...

Proper noun capitalized: Gross

Gross

  1. A surname from Middle English, originally a nickname for a big man, from Middle English gros (“large”).
    • This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, in today for Terry Gross.2022 May 12, Dave Davies, “Has Tucker Carlson created the most racist show in the history of cable news?”, in NPR, spoken by Dave Davies, archived from the original on 28 Jun 2023
  2. A village in Nebraska, having a population of two as of 2010.

gross meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

gross in Hindi

gross, rough, approximate
स्थूल sthūl
gross
परुष paruṣ

gross in Tamil

மொத்தத்தொகை, பெருந்திரள், மிகுதியாய் உணவூட்டப் பெற்ற, உணர்ச்சி மந்தமான, படுமோசமான, செழிப்பான

gross in Marathi

स्थूल

gross in Urdu

gross
پرش paruś
More languagesFewer languages
gross in Bengali
প্রধান অংশ, পুরা অংশ, স্থূল, অশ্লীল
gross in Telugu
స్థూల, స్థూలమైన
gross in Malayalam
പരു paru
gross in Kannada
ಡಜನ್, ಬೊಜ್ಜು ಬೊಜ್ಜಾದ, ಡೊಳ್ಳು ಹೊಟ್ಟೆಯ, ಗುಡಾಣದಂಥ
gross in Gujarati
ગંદું gandũ
gross in Sanskrit
स्थूल sthūlá
gross in Nepali
स्थूल, सकल
gross in Tagalog
kadiri, gruwesa
gross in Arabic
معيب, كُلِّيّ kulliyy, مُقَرَّف muqarraf, سَيِّء sayyiʔ
gross in Malay
kasar
gross in Indonesian
kotor, bruto
gross in Thai
กุรุส kurut

Examples of gross in a sentence

  • Your very faults, how gross soere, to me / Have something pleasing in ’em.1682, Aphra Behn, “The City-Heiress”, in et al., London: D. Brown, act IV, scene 1, page 40:
  • [H]ad his actions been what Wickham represented them, so gross a violation of every thing right could hardly have been concealed from the world; […]1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], Pride and Prejudice: […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [George Sidney] for...
  • [H]e has been found guilty, on the clearest evidence, first, of stealing a valuable motor-car; secondly, of driving to the public danger; and, thirdly, of gross impertinence to the rural police.1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, chapter 6, in The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC:
  • Resources do not depend upon gross amounts, but upon the proportion of spendings to takings.1878 January–December, Thomas Hardy, chapter I, in The Return of the Native […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith...

All 40 example sentences with gross

Synonyms of gross

28 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of gross

Forms of gross

Adjective
comparativegrosser
comparativemore gross
superlativegrossest
superlativemost gross
Noun
pluralgross
pluralgrosses
Verb
third-person singular presentgrosses
present participlegrossing
past participlegrossed
pastgrossed

Plural of gross: gross or grosses

Origin of gross

From Middle English gros (“large, thick, full-bodied; coarse, unrefined, simple”), from Old French gros, from Latin grossus (“big, fat, thick”, in Late Latin also “coarse, rough”), of uncertain further origin but perhaps related to Proto-Celtic *brassos (“great, violent”).

* As a Jewish and German surname, from groß (“great, large”). The Jewish surname was influenced by Hebrew גדול (“big, large”), hence the Hebraicization Gadol. * As an English surname, from the noun and adjective gross, a doublet of above. The village is named after Ben Gross, who kept a general store there.

Words formed from gross

Phrases with gross

4 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with gross

3 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about gross

What does gross mean?
Gross means remarkably great, big, vast in an often unpleasant way; (of behaviour) Highly or conspicuously offensive.
What is gross in Hindi?
Gross in Hindi is स्थूल (sthūl), परुष (paruṣ). See Gross meaning in Hindi.
How do you use gross in a sentence?
Your very faults, how gross soere, to me / Have something pleasing in ’em.
What part of speech is gross?
Gross can be an adjective, a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce gross?
Gross is pronounced /ɡɹəʊs/ (UK).

Words near gross in the dictionary

  1. Groshongs
  2. grosion
  3. Grosjean
  4. Grosjeans
  5. Grosmont
  6. gross
  7. gross adventure
  8. gross anatomy
  9. gross domestic product
  10. gross domestic products
  11. gross income

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gross (page history and authors); Gross (page history and authors); परुष (Hindi) (page history and authors); gross (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); gross (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); پرش (Urdu) (page history and authors); gross (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); gross (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); പരു (Malayalam) (page history and authors); gross (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ગંદું (Gujarati) (page history and authors); स्थूल (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); gross (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-gross.ogg.

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