Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state or quality of being grim, stern, forbidding, or severe.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Fierceness of look; sternness; crabbedness; forbiddingness.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The characteristic or quality of being grim

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the quality of being ghastly
  • noun something hard to endure

Etymologies

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Examples

  • There is a certain grimness, too, about the discreet initials which in shop language are used to denote the six sizes of woman – X.O.S.,

    Try Anything Twice 1938

  • I don't think this 'grimness' is just a female author/novels thing.

    So, what is it about women's fiction... Glenda Larke 2010

  • There was no exultation in Arthur, only a kind of grimness, as if he had accepted some burden which he must bear whether he wanted to or not.

    Merlin's Mirror Norton, Andre 1975

  • Mrs. Armitage, his cook, has given tales of his "grimness" to the cottages where her comfortable presence is welcomed on Sunday and

    Once Aboard the Lugger 1925

  • At first I felt a kind of grimness, and then I was thrilled by the thought that perhaps the end of the war might be near.

    Combed Out Frederick Augustus Voigt 1924

  • And his voice sank with a kind of grimness into silence.

    Acres of Diamonds and His Life and Achievements 1915

  • And his voice sank with a kind of grimness into silence.

    Acres of Diamonds Conwell, Russell H 1915

  • And his voice sank with a kind of grimness into silence.

    Acres of Diamonds: our every-day opportunities Russell Herman Conwell 1884

  • Orange prize 'grimness' is not the fault of women novelists

    WN.com - Business News 2010

  • Fed up: Orange Prize judge Daisy Goodwin complained that the novels she read to compile her shortlist were full of 'grimness'

    Home | Mail Online 2010

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