• enPR: grāv, IPA: /ɡɹeɪv/
• (accent, also) IPA: /ɡɹɑːv/

From Middle English grave, grafe, from Old English græf, grafu, from Proto-West Germanic *grab, from Proto-Germanic *grabą, *grabō, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrebʰ-.

grave

1. (narrowly) An excavation in the earth as a place of burial.

   Synonyms: plot

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC ↗, John 11:17 ↗:

     He had lain in the grave four days.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC ↗, Psalms 31:17 ↗:

     Let mee not be ashamed, O Lord, for I haue called vpon thee: let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the graue.

   • 1856, Gustave Flaubert, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling, Madame Bovary, Part III, Chapter X:

     They reached the cemetery. The men went right down to a place in the grass where a grave was dug. They ranged themselves all round; and while the priest spoke, the red soil thrown up at the sides kept noiselessly slipping down at the corners.

2. (broadly) Any place of interment; a tomb; a sepulcher.
3. (very broadly) Any place containing one or more corpses.
4. (uncountable, by extension) Death, destruction.
5. (by extension, uncountable) Deceased people; the dead.
   • 1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019:

     "Hold your jaw, woman! I've had enough to vex me to-day without you startin' your tantrums. You're jealous of the grave. That's wot's the matter with you." "And her brats can insult me as they like - me that 'as cared for you these five years."

• groove

• French: tombe
• German: Grab
• Italian: fossa, tomba
• Portuguese: sepultura, cova, túmulo
• Russian: моги́ла
• Spanish: tumba, sepultura,

From Middle English graven, from Old English grafan, from Proto-Germanic *grabaną, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrebʰ-.

grave (graves, present participle graving; simple past and past participle graved)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To dig.
   • 1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC ↗, vij:[16]:

     He hath graven and digged up a pit.

2. (intransitive, obsolete) To carve or cut, as letters or figures, on some hard substance; to engrave.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC ↗, Exodus 28:9 ↗:

     Thou shalt take two onyx stones, and grave on them the names of the children of Israel.

   • a. 1894, Robert Louis Stevenson, "Requiem"

     This be the verse you grave for me / "Here he lies where he longs to be"

   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC ↗:

     'It may be so,' I answered; 'but if the loved one prove a broken reed to pierce us, or if the love be loved in vain - what then? Shall a man grave his sorrows upon a stone when he hath but need to write them on the water?'

3. (transitive, obsolete) To carve out or give shape to, by cutting with a chisel; to sculpture.

   to grave an image

4. (intransitive, obsolete) To impress deeply (on the mind); to fix indelibly.
   • 1718, Mat[thew] Prior, “Solomon on the Vanity of the World. A Poem in Three Books.”, in Poems on Several Occasions, London: […] Jacob Tonson […], and John Barber […], →OCLC ↗, (please specify the page):

     O! may they graven in thy heart remain.

5. (transitive, obsolete) To entomb; to bury.
   • 1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The life and death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act III, scene ii]:

     […] And lie full low, graved in the hollow ground.

6. (intransitive, obsolete) To write or delineate on hard substances, by means of incised lines; to practice engraving.

• begrave
• engrave

• French: graver
• Italian: intagliare
• Russian: выреза́ть
• Spanish: grabar

• French: tailler, sculpter
• Italian: scolpire
• Spanish: esculpir, tallar

• French: graver
• Italian: imprimere
• Russian: производить впечатление
• Spanish: grabar

From Middle French grave, a learned borrowing from Latin gravis.

grave (comparative graver, superlative gravest)

1. Characterised by a dignified sense of seriousness; not cheerful. [from 16th c.]

   Synonyms: sober, solemn, sombre, sedate, serious, staid

   • c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act III, scene i]:

     [Mercuti] Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.

2. Low in pitch, tone etc. [from 17th c.]

   Antonyms: acute

   • 1854, John Weeks Moore, Encyclopedia of Music:

     The thicker the cord or string, the more grave is the note or tone.

3. Serious, in a negative sense; important, formidable. [from 19th c.]

   Synonyms: serious, momentous, important

4. (phonology, dated, of a sound) Dull, produced in the middle or back of the mouth. (See w:Grave and acute on Wikipedia.Wikipedia)

   Coordinate term: acute

5. (obsolete) Influential, important; authoritative. [16th]
   • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC ↗, partition II, section 3, member 7:

     An illiterate fool sits in a mans seat; and the common people hold him learned, grave, and wise.

• weightsome, sweer
• (unsorted by sense) sage, demure, thoughtful, weighty

• French: grave
• German: gewichtig, gemessen, gravitätisch
• Italian: solenne, grave
• Russian: серьёзный
• Spanish: serio, seco, solemne, reservado, sombrío

• German: dumpf, dunkel
• Italian: grave
• Russian: ни́зкий
• Spanish: grave, bajo

• French: grave
• German: respektgebietend, furchtgebietend
• Italian: opprimente
• Russian: тяжёлый
• Spanish: grave, apremiante

grave (plural graves)

1. A grave accent.

grave (plural graves)

1. (historical) A count, prefect, or person holding office.

• burgrave
• landgrave
• margrave
• palsgrave
• waldgrave

grave (graves, present participle graving; simple past and past participle graved)

1. (transitive, obsolete, nautical) To clean, as a vessel's bottom, of barnacles, grass, etc., and pay it over with pitch — so called because graves or greaves was formerly used for this purpose.

• graving dock

• As an English surname, from Middle English greyve.
• Also as an English surname, variant of Grove.
• As a French - surname, from the noun gravier.
• As a north German - surname, variant of Graf; also from the Low German - noun Graf (see grave).

1. Surname.