grave

Forms

grave m or f (masculine and feminine plural graves, superlative gravísimo)^[1] Old Spanish texts write graue and grave, and also grieue, grief, graf and griv.^[2] The form grieve occurs in the Setenario, in Alfonso X's astronomical books and in the Primera crónica general.^[3][4]

Etymology

It continues inherited from Latin gravis (“heavy; serious, weighty”), and Old Spanish already had the same form grave.^[3][5][6][1] Corominas calls it a noble word, frequent from the oldest texts on, and Vox classes it as an inherited word, while Bénaben describes it as taken from Latin.^[3][7][8]

The same Latin word gave Portuguese grave and Italian grave.^[9] Most other Romance languages generalised a variant Medieval Latin grevis, remade after its opposite Latin levis (“light”): Romanian greu, Italian greve, Old French grief, Occitan greu and Catalan greu.^[9][3][10] Wiktionary notes that this variant is recorded in a glossary of the 8th century.^[1] Old Spanish knew it as well, in the form grieve, and García de Diego lists the Old Castilian form beside the Catalan word.^[3][11]

The Latin adjective goes back to Proto-Italic *gʷraus and Proto-Indo-European *gʷréh₂us (“heavy”), an old u-stem adjective that Latin turned into an i-stem.^[12][1] Its cognates include Ancient Greek βαρύς (barús, “heavy”) and Gothic 𐌺𐌰𐌿𐍂𐌿𐍃 (kaurus, “heavy”).^[12][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The adverb gravemientre “gravely” already appears in the Glosas Silenses of the second half of the 10th century, and the BDELC dates the word from then.^[3][5] The earliest hit for the adjective in the CDH is in La fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), where a speaker tells the Lord that he is no orator, being grief of mouth, that is “heavy, slow” of speech.^[13] The Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca (c. 1215, in a 14th-century copy) has faré grave penitencia “I shall do hard penance”.^[13]

Semantic evolution

In Berceo the word means “grave, weighty” (graves sentencias) and also “terrible, sharp” of pains (graves dolores).^[14] The prose of Alfonso X uses it for “great, important”, “hard, difficult”, “irksome” and “cruel, harmful”, often in the form grieve.^[4]

Covarrubias in 1611 gives first the sense of authority and standing, a persona grave, then a serious case and a heavy weight.^[15] Autoridades starts from the physical sense, a body that tends to fall by its nature, then “great”, then “circumspect, inspiring respect”.^[16] Terreros records the technical uses in physics, grammar (the accent) and music (a low sound).^[17] The Academy's 1884 edition added the grammatical sense of a word stressed on the penultimate syllable, and the 1899 edition the noun use los graves for falling bodies.^[18][19] The sense “seriously ill”, said of a person, is now in the DLE.^[6]

In the north of Portugal grave names correct, standard Portuguese as opposed to the local dialects.^[3] In Honduras it can mean “conceited”, and in Bolivia it is used as an adverb meaning “excessively”.^[20] Tagalog borrowed it as grabe.^[1]

Timeline

• Second half of the 10th century – the Glosas Silenses have the adverb gravemientre.^[3]
• c. 1200 – La fazienda de Ultra Mar has the form grief (in a 13th-century copy).^[13]
• c. 1215 – the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca has grave penitencia (in a 14th-century copy).^[13]
• c. 1236 – Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos speaks of graves sentencias.^[13][14]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses grieve for “hard to do”.^[4]
• c. 1440 – first record of the derivative gravedad.^[5]
• 1532 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines grave first as “of authority and standing”.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the Latin etymology and the grammatical sense.^[18]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (also as a noun) heavy, having weight; as a noun in physics, a body that falls under gravity.^[6][22]
2. serious, of great importance or with harmful consequences: un error grave.^[6][1]
3. Of a person, seriously ill or injured: El herido sigue grave.^[6][7]
4. solemn, dignified, inspiring respect.^[6][1]
5. Of style, marked by decorum and nobility.^[6]
6. Hard, arduous.^[6]
7. Irksome, troublesome.^[6]
8. (acoustics; also as a noun) Of a sound, low in frequency, bass, as opposed to agudo.^[6][1]
9. (phonetics; also as a noun) Of a word, stressed on the penultimate syllable; llano, paroxytone.^[6][1]

Word family

• gravedad
• gravemente
• gravoso
• agravar

Related words

• gravar
• gravitar
• agraviar
• gravamen
• grávido
• Latin gravis
• Catalan greu

Usage notes

Set phrases include acento grave “grave accent” and necesidad grave (in theology, the state of one in danger of losing temporal or eternal life).^[6][23]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. grave
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 202
4. ^ a b c Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. grave
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. grave
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. grave
7. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. grave
8. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. grave
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3855
10. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 4, 649
11. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. gravis
12. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. grave
14. ^ a b Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 396
15. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 935
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 77
17. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 2, 236
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 541
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 503
20. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. grave
21. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. grave
22. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. grave
23. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 305