grave – English adjective declension

English adjective forms of grave

Adjective: grave

Comparison Forms

Synthetic

Comparativegraver
Superlativegravest

Perifrastic

Sample Sentences

  • [Mercuti] Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man. [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]:]
  • The thicker the cord or string, the more grave is the note or tone. [1854, John Weeks Moore, Encyclopedia of Music:]
  • Israel’s behaviour is doing grave damage to the Palestinian people and to any hope for peace. [2016 February 6, James Zogby, “Israel’s prickliness blocks the long quest for peace”, in The National:]
  • Khrushchev made a grave miscalculation when he failed to appreciate the growing opposition to his power and overestimated the support of his bureaucracy. [2017, Vladimir Shlapentokh, A Normal Totalitarian Society, page 80:]
  • An illiterate fool sits in a mans seat; and the common people hold him learned, grave, and wise. [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:]

Adjectives inflected like grave

scarce, smoove, sombre, wholsome, sheene, bolshie, baroque, concrete, seveare, comf'table, shrewde, 'umble, grislie, unsubtle, ungentle, indiscrete, couthie, chavvie, lissome, cutesie, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)

Etymology

1. Etymology tree
2. Proto-Indo-European *gʷreh₂-
3. Proto-Indo-European *-us
4. Proto-Indo-European *gʷréh₂us
5. Proto-Italic *gʷraus
6. Latin gravis
7. Proto-Indo-European *-h₂
8. Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂
9. Proto-Indo-European *-yéti
10. Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti
11. Proto-Indo-European *-h₂tiinflu.
12. Proto-Italic *-ājō
13. Proto-Italic *-āō
14. Latin -ō
15. Medieval Latin gravō
16. Medieval Latin gravader.
17. Old French grave
18. Middle French gravebor.
19. English grave
20. From Middle French grave, a learned borrowing from Latin gravis (“heavy, important”). Compare Old French greve (“terrible, dreadful”). Doublet of grief. See: Latin Adjectives 'gravis'.

Verbs referencing "grave"

Swedish Adjectives grav.