Grievous
— very serious; causing grief
Grievous means extremely serious, severe, or causing great suffering and sorrow. It describes situations, injuries, errors, or offenses that are not merely bad but deeply harmful and distressing.
A grievous wound is life-threatening. A grievous mistake has devastating consequences. A grievous injustice causes widespread suffering. The word always elevates the severity — it signals that something has crossed the threshold from unfortunate into truly grave and painful. In legal contexts, "grievous bodily harm" refers to the most serious category of physical injury.
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Memory Mnemonic
GRIEVE US
The keyword GRIEVE US comes from how Grievous sounds when spoken aloud. This pronunciation connection makes it easy to recall the keyword whenever you hear or see the word.
Memory Link
The news made US (the country) GRIEVE—the national tragedy was very serious and causing grief across America!
Imagine news so terrible that it makes US — the entire country — GRIEVE. Visualise flags at half-mast, people weeping in the streets, a national tragedy that is deeply serious and causes grief across the land. The sorrow is heavy, the harm is severe, the loss is devastating. That weight of suffering, that extreme seriousness, is grievous.
HOW TO MEMORIZE VOCABULARY
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Step 1: Derive a keyword from the word based on how the word is spelled or pronounced. Next time you see the word, you will be able to derive the keyword from it because it is based on the word.
Step 2: Form a visual memory link that connects the keyword and the meaning(s) of the word you are learning.
Step 3: Ensure to Visualise the image, see it in your imagination. This is important even if it takes a few seconds.
Usage Examples
- The soldier sustained grievous injuries in the explosion and was airlifted to the nearest hospital.
- The committee acknowledged that a grievous error in judgment had led to the policy failure.
- The community suffered a grievous loss when the beloved school principal passed away unexpectedly.
- Historians describe the famine as one of the most grievous episodes in the nation's history.
- The report detailed the grievous harm caused to the environment by decades of unregulated dumping.
Etymology of Grievous
From Old French grevos (later grievous), meaning "burdensome" or "painful," derived from grever (to burden, to harm), from Latin gravare (to weigh down), from gravis (heavy). The word entered English in the 13th century and has always described things that are heavy with sorrow, pain, or severity.
Synonyms & Antonyms of Grievous
Synonyms
Antonyms
Common Collocations with Grievous
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