Meaning & use
grievous
Last updated
Meanings
adjectivecomparable
Extremely serious in its effects, causing deep pain, harm, or distress to people.
Grammar: Usually comes before a noun: a grievous injury; rarely after a verb.
Patterns
- a grievous mistake
- a grievous injury
- grievous harm to someone
The soldier suffered grievous wounds in the explosion and was flown to a hospital.
Selling the family farm was a grievous error that the family regretted for decades.
The flood caused grievous damage to homes along the river.
adjectivebefore a nounliteraryold-fashioned
Expressing or filled with deep sorrow, as when mourning a loss.
Grammar: Found mostly in older or literary writing: a grievous cry.
Patterns
- a grievous cry
- a grievous sigh
A grievous cry rose from the crowd when the ship went down.
She gave a grievous sigh as she read the telegram.
The poem ends on a grievous note, with the singer alone at the grave.
Word forms
| comparative | more grievous |
|---|---|
| superlative | most grievous |
Common combinations
- grievous bodily harm
- He was charged with causing grievous bodily harm after the fight outside the pub.
- a grievous error
- Ignoring the warning signs was a grievous error on the part of the manager.
- grievous injury
- The driver escaped with minor cuts, but his passenger sustained a grievous injury.
- a grievous loss
- The death of the founder was a grievous loss for the small company.
- grievous wrong
- The court found that a grievous wrong had been done to the family.
Synonyms and how they differ
- severe
- Severe is the everyday word for something very bad in degree, whereas grievous adds a formal tone of suffering or blame.
- serious
- Serious is much milder and more general, and it would not suggest deep pain the way grievous does.
- dire
- Dire stresses a threatening or desperate situation, while grievous stresses the harm that has already been done.
- heinous
- Heinous describes only wicked acts such as crimes, whereas grievous can describe injuries, mistakes, and losses.
Opposites
Word family
- grievously adverb
- in a very serious or painful way, as in grievously injured
- grievousness noun
- the quality of being very serious or harmful
- grieve verb
- to feel deep sorrow, especially over a death
- grief noun
- intense sorrow, especially after a loss
- grievance noun
- a real or imagined cause for complaint
Commonly confused: grievous or grievance? grievous or grieving?
grievous vs grievance
A grievance is a complaint about unfair treatment, a noun; grievous is an adjective meaning very serious or harmful.
grievous vs grieving
Grieving describes someone who is feeling sorrow, while grievous describes what causes great harm or pain.
Practice
The prosecutor said the attacker had inflicted ______ bodily harm on his victim.
Choose one answer.
Grievous bodily harm is the standard legal phrase for very serious injury. Grievance is a noun and grieving describes feeling grief, so neither fits before 'bodily harm'.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “grievous”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.