Meanings
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1
noun
A place in the ground where a dead body is buried, often marked by a stone.
They put flowers on their mother's grave.
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2
adj
Very serious and worrying.
The patient is in a grave condition.
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3
adj
Serious and solemn in manner.
He gave us a grave look before sharing the news.
Thesaurus
Etymology
From Middle English grave, grafe, from Old English græf, grafu (“cave, grave, trench”), from Proto-West Germanic *grab, from Proto-Germanic *grabą, *grabō (“grave, trench, ditch”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrebʰ- (“to dig, scratch, scrape”). Cognate with West Frisian grêf (“grave”), Dutch graf (“grave”), Low German Graf (“a grave”), Graff, German Grab (“grave”), Danish, Swedish and Norwegian grav (“grave”), Icelandic gröf (“grave”). Related to groove.