grim

Meanings

Adjective

• dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
• rigid and unrelenting
• ghastly or sinister
• disgusting; gross

Noun

• specter, ghost, haunting spirit
• Anger, wrath.

Verb

• To make grim; to give a stern or forbidding aspect to.

Origin

• From Middle English grim, from Old English grim, grimm, from Proto-West Germanic *grimm, from Proto-Germanic *grimmaz, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrem-. Noun sense derives from adjective, from 1620s.
• From Middle English grim, grym, greme, from Old English *grimu, *grimmu, from Proto-Germanic *grimmį̄, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrem-. Cognate with Middle Dutch grimme, Middle High German grimme, modern German Grimm.