Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To cause to be sorrowful; distress.
  • intransitive verb To mourn or sorrow for.
  • intransitive verb To file an official or formal grievance on account of (an actual or perceived injustice).
  • intransitive verb Archaic To hurt or harm.
  • intransitive verb To experience or express grief.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To inflict mental pain or distress upon; cause to suffer; make sorrowful; afflict; aggrieve.
  • To vex; harass; oppress.
  • To sorrow over; deplore; lament.
  • To feel grief; be in mental distress; sorrow; mourn: usually followed by at, for, about, or over.
  • Synonyms Mourn, etc. See lament, v. i.
  • noun Another spelling of greeve.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Scot. A manager of a farm, or overseer of any work; a reeve; a manorial bailiff.
  • intransitive verb To feel grief; to be in pain of mind on account of an evil; to sorrow; to mourn; -- often followed by at, for, or over.
  • transitive verb To occasion grief to; to wound the sensibilities of; to make sorrowful; to cause to suffer; to afflict; to hurt; to try.
  • transitive verb rare To sorrow over.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete A governor of a town or province.
  • noun A manager or steward, e.g. of a farm.
  • verb transitive To cause sorrow or distress.
  • verb transitive To feel very sad about; to mourn; to sorrow for.
  • verb intransitive To experience grief.
  • verb transitive, archaic To harm.
  • verb transitive To submit or file a grievance.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb cause to feel sorrow
  • verb feel grief

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English greven, from Old French grever, to harm, from Latin gravāre, to burden, from gravis, heavy; see gwerə- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English grœfa

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French grever ("to burden"), from Latin gravare, from adjective gravis ("grave").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word grieve.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.