gruesome

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   Extremely unpleasant and shocking, usually involving death, injury, or blood.

   The film was too gruesome for me, with one violent scene after another.

2. 2
   adj

   Very bad or unpleasant in a general sense.

   The team played a gruesome match and lost by a humiliating score.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Gruesome appeared in English in the late 16th century, formed from Scots grue, “to feel horror” or “to shudder.” It remained uncommon until the late 18th century and was later popularized by Sir Walter Scott; grewsome was the usual spelling until about 1850.

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”)

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary