Standard Lemma guide

grim

adj · name · noun · verb · 16 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • General-American, Received-Pronunciation: /ɡɹɪm/
  • General-American: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • rhymes with -ɪm
  • /ɡɹɪm/
  • homophone: grim
  • CMU ARPABET: G R IH1 M Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.

1

adj

Meaning 1

Dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Examples

  • Life was grim in many northern industrial towns.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: bleak, harsh, cheerless, comfortless, dark, morose, depressing, desolate, dire, disconsolate, dismal, doleful, dolesome, drear, drearisome, dreary, dreich, forlorn, gayless, gray, gloomsome, gloomy, grim, joyless, lack-laughter, lugubrious, melancholy, mirthless, miserable, no joke, saturnine, solemn, somber, sombre, spiritless, sullen, sunless, uncheerful, uncheery, unhappy, unmerry, wintry, woeful, brutal, callous, cold, cold-eyed, cruel, dour, flint-hearted, forbidding, frosty, hard, hard-boiled, hardened, hardhearted, heartless, humorless, icy, iron-hearted, insensate, insensitive, marble-hearted, rigorous, rockhearted, severe, stern, stonehearted, stony, stonyhearted, strict, tough, unsympathetic, unmoved

Antonyms: none provided

2

adj

Meaning 2

Rigid and unrelenting.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Examples

  • His grim determination enabled him to win.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: overwhelming, unbending, adamantine, concrete, firm, granitic, grim, hard, inflexible, lithic, resistant, rigid, robust, solid, stiff, stout, sturdy, stony, tough, unyielding, bateless, incontestable, inexorable, invincible, irresistible, overpowering, potent, puissant, persistent, relentless, unrelenting, unremitting, unstoppable

Antonyms: none provided

3

adj

Meaning 3

Ghastly or sinister.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Examples

  • A grim castle overshadowed the village.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: forboding, malevolent, abandoned, arrant, bad, bad apple, bad seed, baleful, scurrilous, baneful, base, black-hearted, dark, deleterious, demonic, depraved, despicable, detrimental, devilish, diabolical, evil, evil-minded, facinorous, flagitious, harmful, heinous, ill-intentioned, ill-natured, immoral, incorrigible, iniquitous, iniquous, injurious, knavish, malefic, maleficent, malicious, malign, malignant, naughty, nefarious, niddering, nidering, niding, nithing, no-good, peccaminous, pernicious, reprehensible, reprobate, satanic, scathful, sinful, sinister, sordid, sullen, ungodly, unholy, vicious, vile, villainous, wicked, wrong, chilling, creepy, eldritch, freakish, frightening, grim, offputting, scary, spooky, unsettling

Antonyms: none provided

4

adj

Meaning 4

Disgusting; gross.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Examples

  • – Wanna see the dead rat I found in my fridge? – Mate, that is grim!

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: foul, loathsome, abhorrant, abhorrent, bad, sickly, bum, vile, demonic, disagreeable, disgusting, distasteful, rancid, fulsome, gooey, grim, gro, grody, gross, grotty, harsh, munted, nasty, nauseous, offensive, obnoxious, obscene, rank, repugnant, repulsive, revolting, scabrous, sickening, strident, unpleasant

Antonyms: none provided

5

adj

Meaning 5

Fierce, cruel, furious.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: obsolete

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: ferocious, raging, savage, violent, agitated, angry, annoyed, apoplectic, bad-tempered, berserk, big mad, blood-boiling, boiling mad, butthurt, cheesed off, choleric, cranky, cross, enraged, fit to be tied, frustrated, fuming, furibund, furious, fury, glimflashy, grim, hopping mad, ill-natured, incensed, infuriated, irate, ireful, ired, irritated, little mad, livid, mad, mad as a bear with a sore head, miffed, offended, pathetic, pissed off, p'd off, pissed, pissy, ready to be tied, screwfaced, seething, spitting chips, splenetic, sore, steaming, up on one's ear, upset, vexed, waxy, wode, wrathful, wroth, zowerswopped, fierce, incessive, infuriate, rabid, volatile, wild, animalistic, barbarian, barbaric, barbarious, barbarous, brutal, brutish, Gothic, Gothlike, heathen, heathenish, heathenly, heathenous, incivil, pagan, tenebrose, truculent, uncivil, uncivilized, uncouth, uncultivated, uncultured, uplandish, wolfish

Antonyms: none provided

6

name

Meaning 6

An English surname

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

7

noun

Meaning 7

A promiscuous woman.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: Multicultural-London-English, dated, slang

Qualifier: probably a fashionable word around 2006

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: NB: All terms are usually pejorative unless stated otherwise., 304, alley cat, alleycat, amorette, amoret, amorosa, article, Athanasian wench, blowsabella, bop, chippy, cocotte, cockatrice, cockslut, cockwhore, crumpet, cum dumpster, cum guzzler, cumhole, cumslut, cumwhore, Cyprian, demimondaine, doxy, drab, eager beaver, Essex girl, flirt-gill, floogy, floosie, floosy, floozie, floozy, fornicator, fornicatour, fornicatress, fornicatrix, fuckstress, Fulham virgin, geebag, giglot, gillian, gill, good-time girl, grim, grisette, harlot, ho bag, ho-bag, hoe bag, hoe-bag, hoe, hoochie mama, hoochie, hood rat, ho, hussy, jade, jay, jillflirt, lady of light virtue, LBFM, light-o'-love, light-of-love, lightskirt, little brown fucking machine, loose woman, lorette, mab, manizer, minx, moll, mort wap-apace, nymphomaniac, painted Jezebel, puta, puzzel, quean, Quicumque vult, quiff, rig, scag, scrubber, skank, skettle, sket, skit, slag, slapper, slattern, sloven, slutbag, slut, stale, streel, strumpet, sweet cheeks, tartlet, tart, thotty, thot, town bicycle, town bike, tramp, treddle, trollop, trull, village bicycle, village bike, wagon, waistcoateer, wanton, wench, whore

Antonyms: none provided

8

noun

Meaning 8

Anger, wrath.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: countable, obsolete, uncountable

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

9

noun

Meaning 9

A specter, ghost, haunting spirit.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: countable, obsolete, uncountable

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

10

verb

Meaning 10

To make grim; to give a stern or forbidding aspect to.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: rare, transitive

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

11

adjective satellite

Meaning 11

shockingly repellent; inspiring horror

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

Examples

  • ghastly wounds
  • the grim aftermath of the bombing
  • the grim task of burying the victims
  • a grisly murder
  • gruesome evidence of human sacrifice
  • macabre tales of war and plague in the Middle ages
  • macabre tortures conceived by madmen

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: ghastly, grisly, gruesome, macabre, sick

Antonyms: none provided

12

adjective satellite

Meaning 12

causing dejection

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

Examples

  • a blue day
  • the dark days of the war
  • a week of rainy depressing weather
  • a disconsolate winter landscape
  • the first dismal dispiriting days of November
  • a dark gloomy day
  • grim rainy weather

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: blue, dark, dingy, disconsolate, dismal, gloomy, sorry, drab, drear, dreary

Antonyms: none provided

13

adjective satellite

Meaning 13

filled with melancholy and despondency

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

Examples

  • gloomy at the thought of what he had to face
  • gloomy predictions
  • a gloomy silence
  • took a grim view of the economy
  • the darkening mood
  • lonely and blue in a strange city
  • depressed by the loss of his job
  • a dispirited and resigned expression on her face
  • downcast after his defeat
  • feeling discouraged and downhearted

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: gloomy, blue, depressed, dispirited, down(p), downcast, downhearted, down in the mouth, low, low-spirited

Antonyms: none provided

14

adjective satellite

Meaning 14

not to be placated or appeased or moved by entreaty

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

Examples

  • grim determination
  • grim necessity
  • Russia's final hour, it seemed, approached with inexorable certainty
  • relentless persecution
  • the stern demands of parenthood

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: inexorable, relentless, stern, unappeasable, unforgiving, unrelenting

Antonyms: none provided

15

adjective satellite

Meaning 15

harshly uninviting or formidable in manner or appearance- J.M.Barrie

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

Examples

  • a dour, self-sacrificing life
  • a forbidding scowl
  • a grim man loving duty more than humanity
  • undoubtedly the grimmest part of him was his iron claw

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: dour, forbidding

Antonyms: none provided

16

adjective satellite

Meaning 16

harshly ironic or sinister

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

Examples

  • black humor
  • a grim joke
  • grim laughter
  • fun ranging from slapstick clowning ... to savage mordant wit

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: black, mordant

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

From Middle English grim, from Old English grimm, from Proto-West Germanic *grimm, from Proto-Germanic *grimmaz, from Proto-Indo-European *ghrem- (“to resound, thunder, grumble, roar”).

Probably derived from Old English *Grīm, Old Norse Grímr (literally “masked person”).

From Middle English grim, grym, greme, from Old English *grimu, *grimmu, grima, from Proto-Germanic *grimmį̄ (“anger, wrath”), from Proto-Indo-European *ghrem- (“to resound, thunder, grumble, roar”). Cognate with Middle Dutch grimme, Middle High German grimme f (“anger”), modern German Grimm m.

Across languages

Translations

86 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Bulgarian: строг (strog) — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Bulgarian: суров (surov) — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Bulgarian: неприветлив (neprivetliv) — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Catalan: sinistre — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Catalan: ombrívol — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Catalan: obac — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Czech: chmurný — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Czech: krušný — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Czech: depresivní — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Dutch: grimmig — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Finnish: synkeä — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Finnish: synkkä — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • French: sinistre — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • French: sombre — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • German: grimmig — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • German: düster — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • German: finster — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Old High German: grim — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Old High German: grimmi — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Hebrew: עגום (agúm) — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Hungarian: zord — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Italian: arcigno — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Italian: fosco — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Latin: torvus — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Māori: mōkinokino — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Norman: sévéthe — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Old English: grimm — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Old Norse: grimr — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Old Saxon: grim — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Polish: ponury — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Portuguese: sinistro — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Russian: мра́чный (mráčnyj) — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Scottish Gaelic: gruamach — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Slovak: pošmúrny — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Slovak: neprívetivý — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Spanish: siniestro — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Spanish: sombrío — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Spanish: lóbrego — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Spanish: lúgubre — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Swedish: grådaskig — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Swedish: kylig — dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
  • Bulgarian: неумолим (neumolim) — rigid and unrelenting
  • Bulgarian: непреклонен (nepreklonen) — rigid and unrelenting
  • Catalan: rígid — rigid and unrelenting
  • Esperanto: neŝancelebla — rigid and unrelenting
  • Finnish: ankara — rigid and unrelenting
  • French: inébranlable — rigid and unrelenting
  • French: indéfectible — rigid and unrelenting
  • French: rigide — rigid and unrelenting
  • French: sombre — rigid and unrelenting
  • German: unbeugsam — rigid and unrelenting
  • German: unnachgiebig — rigid and unrelenting
  • German: eisern — rigid and unrelenting
  • Irish: dorrga — rigid and unrelenting
  • Italian: tenace — rigid and unrelenting
  • Old English: grimm — rigid and unrelenting
  • Polish: nieubłagany — rigid and unrelenting
  • Polish: srogi — rigid and unrelenting
  • Portuguese: rígido — rigid and unrelenting
  • Portuguese: austero — rigid and unrelenting
  • Russian: непрекло́нный (nepreklónnyj) — rigid and unrelenting
  • Spanish: rígido — rigid and unrelenting
  • Swedish: stenhård — rigid and unrelenting
  • Bulgarian: мрачен (mračen) — ghastly or sinister
  • Bulgarian: зловещ (zlovešt) — ghastly or sinister
  • Catalan: sinistre — ghastly or sinister
  • Catalan: espectral — ghastly or sinister
  • Danish: dyster — ghastly or sinister
  • Finnish: synkeä — ghastly or sinister
  • Finnish: synkkä — ghastly or sinister
  • Finnish: kolkko — ghastly or sinister
  • French: sinistre — ghastly or sinister
  • French: sombre — ghastly or sinister
  • French: déprimant — ghastly or sinister
  • French: triste — ghastly or sinister
  • Georgian: სასტიკი (sasṭiḳi) — ghastly or sinister
  • German: gruselig — ghastly or sinister
  • Hebrew: נורא (norá) — ghastly or sinister
  • Italian: tetro — ghastly or sinister
  • Italian: sinistro — ghastly or sinister
  • Old English: grimm — ghastly or sinister
  • Portuguese: sinistro — ghastly or sinister
  • Russian: мра́чный (mráčnyj) — ghastly or sinister
  • Russian: злове́щий (zlovéščij) — ghastly or sinister
  • Spanish: siniestro — ghastly or sinister
  • Swedish: kuslig — ghastly or sinister