grave

English has three main words spelled grave: the place of burial, the adjective meaning serious, and the old verb meaning to carve or engrave.^[1][2]

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ɡreɪv/; the accent: UK /ɡrɑːv/, US /ɡrɑːv/, /ɡreɪv/^[3]

grave¹ place of burial

Etymology

The burial place is Middle English grave, inherited from Old English græf (“grave, ditch, trench, cave”),^[2][4][5] from Proto-Germanic *grabą,^[5] which is also the source of Old Saxon and Dutch graf, Old High German grab (German Grab), Old Norse grǫf and Gothic 𐌲𐍂𐌰𐌱𐌰 (graba, “ditch”).^[2][5] It is formed on the Germanic base of Old English grafan (“to dig”) (see grave³),^[2][4] and is cognate with Old Church Slavonic гробъ (grobŭ, “grave, tomb”);^[5] Watkins derives the group from a PIE root Proto-Indo-European *ghrebh- (“to dig, scratch”), though it may be a substrate word in Germanic and Balto-Slavic.^[5] The expected modern form would be *graff; grave comes from the Middle English two-syllable form, probably because the word was so often used in the dative or plural.^[5][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A place of burial, an excavation in the earth for a dead body: before 1000.^[6][2]

Semantic evolution

From the Middle Ages to the 17th century graves were temporary, and the bones were moved to ossuaries after some years so that the grave could be reused;^[5] “perpetual” graves became common from about 1650, according to Etymonline.^[5] The grave as the natural destination of everyone, or death itself, is from about 1380,^[6] and personified as Death or Hades from 1611.^[6] An excavation of any kind, a pit or trench, is from 1526 but is now obsolete.^[6] To turn in one's grave is by 1842.^[5] Graveyard is first American English, from 1773.^[2]

Timeline

• before 1000 – Old English græf.^[6][2]
• c. 1380 – the grave as everyone's end.^[6]
• 1611 – personified as Death.^[6]
• 1773 – graveyard.^[2]
• 1842 – to turn in one's grave.^[5]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. An excavation in the earth in which a dead body is buried; any place of burial.
2. (the grave) death, or the state of being dead.

grave² serious, weighty

Etymology

The adjective is borrowed from Middle French grave,^[2][4][5] from Latin gravis (“heavy, weighty, serious”),^[2][5] which is cognate with Sanskrit गुरु (gurú, “heavy”), Ancient Greek βαρύς (barús, “heavy”) and Gothic 𐌺𐌰𐌿𐍂𐌿𐍃 (kaurus, “heavy”),^[2][4] from PIE Proto-Indo-European *gʷerə- (“heavy”).^[2][5] The accent sense is after the same use in French (1548).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Weighty, important: 1541 in Barnhart;^[2] influential, respected, marked by weighty dignity, in the 1540s in Etymonline.^[5] The SOED has an isolated late 15th-century use of a serious wound.^[7]

Semantic evolution

In Latin gravis was physically heavy and figuratively weighty or oppressive, and of sounds deep or low.^[5] In English the sense of solemn and sober is from the 1580s, and of matters important or serious from the 1590s.^[5] Plain or sombre is from the 17th century.^[4] The grammatical sense, the accent mark ` over a vowel, as opposed to the acute, is from 1609,^[2][4] about 1600 in Etymonline.^[5] In music grave, slow and solemn, is from French or Italian in the late 16th century.^[7]

Timeline

• 1541 – weighty, important.^[2]
• 1580s – solemn, sober.^[5]
• 1590s – serious, of matters.^[5]
• 1609 – the grave accent.^[2]

Modern meaning

Adjective

1. Needing serious thought; momentous.
2. Threatening danger or harm.
3. Dignified and solemn in manner.
4. Of an accent, written ` over a vowel, as in French è.

Noun

1. A grave accent.

grave³ to engrave

Etymology

The verb is Middle English graven, inherited from Old English grafan (“to dig, carve, engrave”),^[2][4][5] from Proto-Germanic *grabaną,^[5][2] the source also of Dutch graven (“to dig”), Old High German graban (German graben), Old Norse grafa and Gothic 𐌲𐍂𐌰𐌱𐌰𐌽 (graban).^[2][5] It is cognate with Latvian grebt (“to hollow out”) and Old Church Slavonic погрести (pogreti, “to bury”),^[2][8] from PIE Proto-Indo-European *ghrebh-.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old English grafan meant to dig as well as to engrave or carve,^[5][4] and Middle English graven, to carve, is probably before 1200.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Trench quotes Coverdale's Isaiah (1535), “grave up dykes”, for the old sense of digging, which German graben keeps.^[9] The strong past tense died out in the 15th century;^[4] the past participle graven, as in a graven image (Wycliffe Bible, 1382), is the only part still used,^[2][5] and the rest of the word has been replaced by its derivative engrave.^[5]

Timeline

• before 1000 – Old English grafan, to dig, carve.^[2]
• 1382 – graven, carved, in the Wycliffe Bible.^[2]
• 1535 – to dig, in Coverdale.^[9]

Modern meaning

Verb

1. (archaic) To sculpt or carve; to engrave.
2. (archaic) To fix firmly in the mind.

Related words

• groove
• engrave
• burgrave
• landgrave
• margrave
• palsgrave
• waldgrave
• graving dock
• gravity
• grief

Usage notes

Two minor words have the same spelling: grave, a steward and later a local official in parts of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, and a German count (compare margrave), from Old Norse and Low German;^[7][6] and grave, to clean a ship's bottom by burning and tarring (15th century), probably from a dialect French grave “shore”, which survives in graving dock.^[4][7]

References

1. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker