Dictionary

grimness en · NOUN

Etymology

From Middle English grimnesse, from Old English grimnes (“severity, fierceness, cruelty”), equivalent to grim + -ness.

Meanings

1. (uncountable, usually) The characteristic or quality of being grim.
   • This is a good example of Huxley's method of setting off against each other the frivolities of the artificial world and the grimnesses of the real one […] 2007, George Woodcock, Dawn and the Darkest Hour: A Study of Aldous Huxley, page 79:
   • This one was almost featureless, as if still in the making, with an aspect of monotonous grimness. 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 202:

Forms