grievous

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English grevous,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman grevous (“burdensome, oppressive, heavy”),^[5][2][6][7] Old French grevos or greveus,^{[3][8][9][10]} from grever (“to burden, harm”),^{[3][6][9][11]} from Latin gravō (“to burden”),^[6][7] from gravis (“heavy”),^[7] from Proto-Indo-European *gʷerh₂- (“heavy”).^[6][7] Merriam-Webster and Etymonline instead form the French adjective from the noun gref (“grief”) with the suffix -eus, English -ous.^[8][7] The Anglo-Norman adjective is recorded from the mid 12th century, already in most of the English senses.^[5] The Middle English forms grawous and gravewis recall Old French graveus, Medieval Latin gravōsus, Italian gravoso and Spanish gravoso.^[3] It is related to grieve, grief and grave, heavy, serious.^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a disease, wound or pain, causing great suffering, severe: about 1290, in the South English Legendary.^[3] Etymonline dates the word to about 1300,^[7] and the Anglo-Norman source to the mid 12th century.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The original idea is weight: Old French and Anglo-Norman grevous meant heavy, weighty, hard and toilsome.^[7][5] In Middle English the word meant pressing heavily on someone, burdensome or oppressive, of taxes, tasks and punishments,^[3][2] a sense now obsolete, apart from public burdens and grievances, where it lasted into the 18th century.^[3][11] From 1297 it described what causes mental pain or distress, later narrowed to what causes deep sorrow,^[3] and since before 1300 a grave fault, crime or sin, deserving heavy punishment.^[3] Chaucer used it 25 times.^[12] Johnson (1755) gave "afflictive; painful; hard to be borne" as its first sense.^[13] The legal phrase grievous bodily harm is recorded from 1803 in Etymonline,^[7] but only from the Offences against the Person Act of 1861 in the OED;^[3] in Australian slang grievous alone has stood for it since 1950.^[14]

Timeline

• c. 1290 – of a disease or wound, causing great suffering.^[3]
• 1297 – causing mental pain or distress.^[3]
• before 1300 – of a fault or sin, grave, serious.^[3]
• 1340 – of things or events, bringing serious trouble.^[3]
• 1382 – burdensome, oppressive (obsolete by 1765).^[3]
• 1803 – grievous bodily harm.^[7] The OED's first record is the Act of 1861.^[3]
• 1950 – Australian slang, grievous, grievous bodily harm.^[14]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Causing great sorrow or distress: a grievous loss.^[15][8][3]
2. Very serious; grave or heinous: a grievous error of judgement.^[8][3][11]
3. Causing severe pain or injury: a grievous wound.^[8][3]
4. grievous bodily harm: in law, serious injury done to a person.^[3][15]
5. (obsolete) Burdensome or oppressive.^[8][3][11]

Word family

• grievously
• grievousness
• overgrievous

Related words

• grieve
• grief
• grievance
• aggrieve
• grave
• gravity

Usage notes

Merriam-Webster notes a pronunciation with an extra syllable, as if spelled grievious, chiefly in substandard speech.^[8]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
6. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ 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
12. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
15. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins