grief
pronunciation
How to pronounce grief in British English:
UK [ɡriːf]
How to pronounce grief in American English:
US [ɡriːf]
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- Noun:
- intense sorrow caused by loss of a loved one (especially by death)
- something that causes great unhappiness
Word Origin
- grief
- grief: [13] ‘Oppressiveness’ is the link between modern English grief and Latin gravis (source of English gravity). The Latin adjective meant ‘heavy, weighty’, and it formed the basis of a verb gravāre ‘weigh upon, oppress’. This passed into Old French as grever ‘cause to suffer, harrass’ (source of English grieve [13]), from which was derived the noun grief or gref ‘suffering, hardship’. Its modern sense, ‘feeling caused by such trouble or hardship, sorrow’, developed in the 14th century.=> grave, gravity, grieve
- grief (n.)
- early 13c., "hardship, suffering, pain, bodily affliction," from Old French grief "wrong, grievance, injustice, misfortune, calamity" (13c.), from grever "afflict, burden, oppress," from Latin gravare "make heavy; cause grief," from gravis "weighty" (see grave (adj.)). Meaning "mental pain, sorrow" is from c. 1300. Good grief as an exclamation of surprise, dismay, etc., is from 1912.
Synonym
misfortune disaster fortune luck calamity hardship mishap loss hard times bad catastrophe days evil pinch adversity ill mischance
Example
- 1. Mr edwards has taken some grief for his own efforts .
- 2. In heraldry black is the symbol of grief .
- 3. People who shared a similar experience dealt with their grief differently .
- 4. Not all financial innovations have come to grief in the credit crunch .
- 5. One key to the puzzle is the asymmetry between personal and public grief .