grief

• greefe (obsolete), griefe (obsolete)

From Middle English greef, gref, from Old French grief (“grave, heavy, grievous, sad”), from Latin gravis (“heavy, grievous, sad”). Doublet of grave.

• IPA^(key): /ɡɹiːf/

• Audio (US)

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• Audio (UK)

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• Rhymes: -iːf

grief (countable and uncountable, plural griefs or grieves)

1. Suffering, hardship. [from early 13th c.]

   The neighbour's teenage give me grief every time they see me.

2. Emotional pain, generally arising from misfortune, significant personal loss, bereavement, misconduct of oneself or others, etc.; sorrow; sadness. [from early 14th c.]

   She was worn out from so much grief.

   The betrayal caused Jeff grief.

   • 1576, George Whetstone, “The Ortchard of Repentance: […]”, in The Rocke of Regard, […], London: […] [H. Middleton] for Robert Waley, →OCLC; republished in J[ohn] P[ayne] Collier, editor, The Rocke of Regard, […] (Illustrations of Early English Poetry; vol. 2, no. 2), London: Privately printed, [1867?], →OCLC, page 291:

     And ſure, although it was invented to eaſe his mynde of griefe, there be a number of caveats therein to forewarne other young gentlemen to foreſtand with good government their folowing yl fortunes; […]

3. (countable) Cause or instance of sorrow or pain; that which afflicts or distresses; trial.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Isaiah 53:4:

     Surely, he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.

grief (third-person singular simple present griefs, present participle griefing, simple past and past participle griefed)

1. (online gaming) To deliberately harass and annoy or cause grief to other players of a game in order to interfere with their enjoyment of it; especially, to do this as one’s primary activity in the game, and especially by exploiting game mechanics without using cheats to do so. [from late 1990s]
   • 2008 January 18, Julian Dibbell, “Mutilated Furries, Flying Phalluses: Put the Blame on Griefers, the Sociopaths of the Virtual World”, in Wired‎:

     While ban and his pals stand squarely in this tradition, they also stand for something new: the rise of organized griefing, grounded in online message-board communities and thick with in-jokes, code words, taboos, and an increasingly articulate sense of purpose. No longer just an isolated pathology, griefing has developed a full-fledged culture.

• This verb is most commonly found in the gerund-participle griefing and the derived noun griefer.

• grievance
• grieve
• grievous

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

From Middle Dutch grief, from Old French grief, from Early Medieval Latin grevem, alteration of Latin gravem.

• IPA^(key): /ɣrif/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: grief
• Rhymes: -if

grief f (plural grieven, diminutive griefje n)

1. (chiefly in the plural) grievance, complaint, bone to pick, issue

• grieven

Inherited from Old French grief, from Early Medieval Latin grevem, alteration of Latin gravem. Doublet of grave, a borrowing from Latin.

• IPA^(key): /ɡʁi.jɛf/

• Audio

  (file)

grief (feminine griève, masculine plural griefs, feminine plural grièves)

1. (archaic, literary) grievous

• grièvement

grief m (plural griefs)

1. complaint
2. grief
3. grievance (formal complaint filed with an authority)

• “grief”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• figer

From Early Medieval Latin grevem, alteration of Latin gravem.

grief m (feminine singular grieva, masculine plural griefs, feminine plural grieves)

1. arduous
2. difficult
3. steep

• gref (typically Anglo-Norman)

From Early Medieval Latin grevem, alteration of Latin gravem.

grief oblique singular, m (oblique plural griés, nominative singular griés, nominative plural grief)

1. pain; anguish; suffering

• French: grief
• → Middle Dutch: grief
  • Dutch: grief
• → Middle English: greef, gref
  • English: grief

grief m (oblique and nominative feminine singular grieve)

1. sad
   • late 12th century, anonymous author, “La Folie de Tristan d'Oxford”, in Le Roman de Tristan, Champion Classiques edition, →ISBN, page 386, line 552:

     Mult ai le quer gref e marri.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

• French: grief (archaic, literary)