Standard Lemma guide

gruesome

adj · 4 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.

  • Received-Pronunciation: /ˈɡɹuːsəm/
  • Received-Pronunciation: /ˈɡɹuːsm̩/
  • Southern-England: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • General-American: /ˈɡɹusəm/
  • rhymes with -uːsəm
  • CMU ARPABET: G R UW1 S AH0 M Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.

1

adj

Meaning 1

Repellently frightful and shocking; ghastly, horrific.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: grisly, horrible, affreux, alarming, spine-tingling, appalling, awful, eldritch, buggish, butt-clenching, buttock-clenching, dismayful, dreadful, fearful, flaysome, flesh-crawling, formidable, freaky, frightening, frightensome, frightful, ghastly, ghostly, hair-curling, hair-raising, horrid, horrific, horrifying, horripilating, pulse-pounding, scaring, scary, shocking, skin-crawling, terrible, terrifying, terrorsome

Antonyms: ungruesome

2

adj

Meaning 2

Awful, terrible.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: broadly, informal

Examples

  • The team was so unprepared that the way it played was just gruesome.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: abysmal, atrocious, awful, bad, chronic, coarse, corny, crap, crapalicious, crappy, crummy, deityforsaken, dire, disagreeable, dismal, dogshit, dreadful, fifth-rate, foul, fourth-rate, godawful, hellish, hideous, hopeless, horrendous, horrid, horrible, horrific, inadequate, incompetent, inelegant, intolerable, inferior, lackluster, loathsome, lousy, miserable, naff, negative, odious, ordinary, pathetic, peak, piss-poor, rotten, rubbish, shitawful, shitty, sixth-rate, sloppy, subpar, terrible, unfavorable, wack

Antonyms: acceptable, agreeable, all right, amazing, as fine as Dick's hatband, awesome, beatific, bene, blissful, bodacious, bona, brilliant, celestial, commendable, cool, dandy as candy, decent, delightful, divine, enjoyable, excellent, exceptional, fabulous, fantastic, fine, goated, goloptious, good as wheat in the bin, gratifying, great, heavenlike, heavenly, incredible, lovely, magnificent, marvelous, neat, nice, not bad, outstanding, perfect, phenomenal, pleasant, pleasing, positive, rad, radical, right as rain, satisfying, solid, splendid, stellar, stupendous, super, superb, sweet, sweet as a nut, terrific, tubular, well, wicked, wonderful, wondrous

3

adj

Meaning 3

Of a person: filled with fear; afraid, fearful.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: archaic, rare

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: afeared, afraid, alarmed, anxious, apprehensive, chicken, concerned, creeped out, fearful, frightened, frit, horrified, mortified, panicked, scared, shocked, startled, terrified, timorous, worried, wary

Antonyms: unafraid, unruffled, unterrified

4

adjective satellite

Meaning 4

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, grim, grisly, macabre, sick

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

From grue (“(archaic except Northern England, Scotland) to be frightened; to shudder with fear”) + -some (suffix meaning ‘characterized by some specific condition or quality, usually to a considerable degree’ forming adjectives and nouns), probably popularized by the Scottish novelist and poet Walter Scott (1771–1832): see, for example, the 1816 quotation. cognates * Danish grusom (“cruel; horrible”) * Middle Dutch grousaem, grusaem (modern Dutch gruwzaam (“cruel; gruesome”)) * Middle High German grûsam, grûwesam (modern German grausam (“cruel”)) * Norwegian Bokmål grusom (“cruel; horrible”)

Across languages

Translations

64 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Arabic: مُرَوِّع (murawwiʕ) — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Bulgarian: страшен (strašen) — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Bulgarian: ужасен (užasen) — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Catalan: paorós — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Chinese Mandarin: 可怕 (kěpà) — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Chinese Mandarin: 恐怖 (kǒngbù) — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Czech: děsný — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Czech: hrůzný — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Czech: příšerný — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Danish: makaber — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Danish: uhyggelig — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Dutch: gruwzaam — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Dutch: afgrijselijk — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Dutch: afschuwelijk — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Dutch: angstaanjagend — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Dutch: gruwelijk — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Dutch: verschrikkelijk — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Esperanto: terura — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Finnish: kaamea — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Finnish: kauhea — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • French: horrible — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Galician: repelente — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Galician: truculento — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • German: grauenhaft — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • German: grauenvoll — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Greek: απαίσιος (apaísios) — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Greek: φρικτός (friktós) — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Irish: gráiniúil — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Italian: orribile — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Italian: raccapricciante — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Japanese: 身の毛もよだつ (minokemoyodatsu) — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Kazakh: жантүршігерлік (jantürşıgerlık) — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Malay: mengerikan — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Māori: tūpō — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Māori: wetiweti — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Norwegian: grusom — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Occitan: òrre — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Occitan: orrible — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Plautdietsch: grausom — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Polish: makabryczny — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Polish: odpychający — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Polish: okropny — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Polish: przerażający — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Polish: straszliwy — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Polish: straszny — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Portuguese: medonho — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Portuguese: horrendo — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Portuguese: pavoroso — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Romanian: groaznic — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Russian: омерзи́тельный (omerzítelʹnyj) — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Russian: отврати́тельный (otvratítelʹnyj) — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Russian: ужа́сный (užásnyj) — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Serbo-Croatian: гро̑зан — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Serbo-Croatian: grȏzan — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Spanish: espantoso — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Spanish: horripilante — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Spanish: truculento — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Swedish: fasansfull — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Swedish: ohygglig — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Turkish: korkunç — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Ukrainian: оги́дний (ohýdnyj) — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Ukrainian: жахли́вий (žaxlývyj) — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Welsh: arswydus — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific
  • Welsh: erchyll — repellently frightful and shocking — see also ghastly, horrific