Pronunciations
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/ɡɹɪm/
Pronunciation notes
- General-American
- Received-Pronunciation
Adjective
Dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding.
- Examples
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Life was grim in many northern industrial towns.
More examples (2)
Developments were markedly different in the Soviet zone, but ultimately ended in perhaps an even grimmer dead end: that of SED leader Walter Ulbricht’s thoroughly Stalinized German Democratic Republic (GDR).
Cristiana Paşca Palmer, the executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, said the destruction of the world’s biggest rainforest was a grim reminder that a fresh approach needed to stabilise the climate and prevent ecosystems from declining to a point of no return, with dire consequences for humanity.
It's been a grim start to the year.
Rigid and unrelenting.
- Synonyms
- Examples
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His grim determination enabled him to win.
Ghastly or sinister.
- Synonyms
- Examples
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A grim castle overshadowed the village.
More examples (2)
There was, I thought, a trace of very profound and very genuine irony in the timbre—not the flashy, meaninglessly jaunty pseudo-irony of the callow "sophisticate," which Derby had habitually affected, but something grim, basic, pervasive and potentially evil.
In movie terms, it suggests Paul Verhoeven in Robocop/Starship Troopers mode, an R-rated bloodbath where the grim spectacle of children murdering each other on television is bread-and-circuses for the age of reality TV, enforced by a totalitarian regime to keep the masses at bay.
Disgusting; gross.
- Examples
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– Wanna see the dead rat I found in my fridge? – Mate, that is grim!
More examples (1)
Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; […]
Fierce, cruel, furious.
Usage- Obsolete
- Examples
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The LORDE shall be grymme vpon them, and destroye all the goddes in the londe. And all the Iles of the Heithen shal worshipe him, euery man in his place.
More examples (1)
The first people we saw were two grim and stout Salvages upon Cape Charles, with long poles like Javelings, headed with bone, they boldly demanded what we were, and what we would[…]
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw / Daily devours apace, and nothing said.
Verb
To make grim; to give a stern or forbidding aspect to.
Usage- Rare
- Transitive
Noun
A promiscuous woman.
Usage- Multicultural-London-English
- Dated
- Slang
- Examples
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You got a new girl and she looks choong (Choong) But you didn't know your girl was a grim […] Your girl she's a grim, I wouldn't have no grim as my ting
Noun
Anger, wrath.
Usage- Countable
- Obsolete
- Uncountable
A specter, ghost, haunting spirit.
Usage- Countable
- Obsolete
- Uncountable
Adjective
not to be placated or appeased or moved by entreaty
- Examples
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grim determination
grim necessity
More examples (3)
Russia's final hour, it seemed, approached with inexorable certainty
relentless persecution
the stern demands of parenthood
shockingly repellent; inspiring horror
- Examples
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ghastly wounds
the grim aftermath of the bombing
More examples (5)
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
harshly ironic or sinister
- Examples
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black humor
a grim joke
More examples (2)
grim laughter
fun ranging from slapstick clowning … to savage mordant wit
harshly uninviting or formidable in manner or appearance
- Synonyms
- Examples
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a dour, self-sacrificing life
a forbidding scowl
More examples (1)
a grim man loving duty more than humanity
filled with melancholy and despondency
- Examples
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gloomy at the thought of what he had to face
gloomy predictions
More examples (8)
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
causing dejection
- Examples
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a blue day
the dark days of the war
More examples (5)
a week of rainy depressing weather
a disconsolate winter landscape
the first dismal dispiriting days of November
a dark gloomy day
grim rainy weather