grateful

• gratefull (archaic)

From Latin gratus (“pleasing, agreeable”) + -ful, morphologically grate +‎ -ful.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡɹeɪtfəl/

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• Rhymes: -eɪtfəl
• Hyphenation: grate‧ful

grateful (comparative gratefuller or more grateful, superlative gratefullest or most grateful)

1. Appreciative; thankful.

   I'm grateful that you helped me out.

   I'm grateful to you for helping me out.

   • 2012 May 5, Phil McNulty, “Chelsea 2-1 Liverpool”, in BBC Sport‎:

     Carroll thought he had equalised with his header against the bar with eight minutes left. Liverpool claimed the ball had cross the line and Chelsea were grateful for a miraculous intervention from Cech to turn his effort on to the woodwork.

2. (obsolete or archaic) Pleasing, welcome.
   • c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:

     Neighbour, this is a gift very grateful, I am sure of it.

   • 1659–1660, Thomas Stanley, “[The Doctrine of Epicurus.] Chapter XXIII. Of Fortitude, against Discontent of Mind.”, in The History of Philosophy, the Third and Last Volume, […], volume III, London: […] Humphrey Moseley, and Thomas Dring, […], →OCLC, 5th part (Containing the Epicurean Sect), 3rd part of philosophy (Ethick, or Morals), page 261:

     [T]he aſſwagement of his [a wise man's] diſcontent conſiſts in two things, formerly preſcribed as remedies againſt corporeall pain; viz. Diverſion of his thoughts from his loſſe, or the cause of it; and an application of them to thoſe things, which he knowes to be gratefull and pleaſant to his mind.

   • 1839, Robert Hooper, Klein Grant, Lexicon Medicum: or, Medical Dictionary, 4th edition, page 1177:

     […] its glands give forth gum arabic; and its flowers an odour of a very grateful fragrance.

   • 1841, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Skeleton in Armor‎:

     Fell I upon my spear,
     Oh, death was grateful!

   • 1847 March 30, Herman Melville, chapter 67, in Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas; […], London: John Murray, […], →OCLC:

     […] grateful underfoot was the damp and slightly yielding beach, from which the waves seemed just retired.

   • 1929, “Introduction”, in Theodore Howard Banks, Jr., transl., Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, New York: F. S. Crofts & Co., Inc., →OCLC, pages 7–8:

     The system of four-beat alliterative Anglo-Saxon poetry permitted such a range of unaccented syllables between stresses that an exact reproduction of this quality seemed undesirable. The translator, has, therefore, permitted himself no more than two unaccented syllables between stresses [...] The resultant effect is a freely equivalenced anapestic measure, perhaps more grateful to modern ears than the less normalized beat of the original.

• thankful
• appreciative

• ungrateful

• gratefulness

• gratitude

• “grateful”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “grateful”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “grateful”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.