grave

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. An excavation for the interment of a corpse.
2. n. A place of burial.
3. n. Death or extinction: faced the grave with calm resignation.
4. adj. Requiring serious thought; momentous: a grave decision in a time of crisis.
5. adj. Fraught with danger or harm: a grave wound.
6. adj. Dignified and somber in conduct or character: a grave procession. See Synonyms at serious.
7. adj. Somber or dark in hue.
8. adj. Linguistics Written with or modified by the mark ( ` ), as the è in Sèvres.
9. adj. Linguistics Of or referring to a phonetic feature that distinguishes sounds produced at the periphery of the vocal tract, as in labial and velar consonants and back vowels.
10. n. Linguistics A mark ( ` ) indicating a pronounced e for the sake of meter in the usually nonsyllabic ending -ed in English poetry.
11. v. To sculpt or carve; engrave.
12. v. To stamp or impress deeply; fix permanently.
13. v. To clean and coat (the bottom of a wooden ship) with pitch.
14. adv. Music In a slow and solemn manner. Used chiefly as a direction.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To dig; delve.
2. . To bury; entomb.
3. To cut or incise, as letters or figures, on stone or other hard substance with an edged or pointed tool; engrave.
4. To carve; sculpture; form or shape by cutting with a tool: as, to grave an image.
5. . To make an impression upon; impress deeply.
6. n. An excavation in the earth, now especially one in which a dead body is or is to be buried: a place for the interment of a corpse; hence, a tomb; a sepulcher.
7. n. Figuratively, any scene or occasion of utter loss, extinction, or disappearance: as, speculation is the grave of many fortunes.
8. n. Sometimes, in the authorized version of the Old Testament, the abode of the dead; Hades. In the revised version the original Hebrew word Sheol is substituted in some places; in others the old rendering is retained, with Sheol in the margin; and in Ezek. xxxi. 15 hell is used instead of the grave. See hell.
9. . Having weight; heavy; ponderous.
10. Solemn; sober; serious: opposed to light or jovial: as, a man of a grave deportment.
11. Plain; not gay or showy: as, grave colors.
12. Important; momentous; weighty; having serious import.
13. In acoustics, deep; low in pitch: opposed to acute.
14. n. The grave accent; also, the sign of the grave accent (`).
15. In music, to render grave, as a note or tone.
16. To clean (a ship's bottom) by burning or scraping off seaweeds, barnacles, etc., and paying it over with pitch.
17. n. A count; a prefect: in Germany and the Low Countries— formerly, a person holding some executive or judicial office: usually in composition with a distinctive term, as landgrave, margrave (*mark-grave), burgrave (*burg-grave), dike-grave, etc.; now merely a title of rank or honor.
18. In music, slow; solemn: noting passages to be so rendered.

Wiktionary

1. n. A written accent used in French, Italian, and other languages. è is an e with a grave accent.
2. n. An excavation in the earth as a place of burial; also, any place of interment; a tomb; a sepulcher.
3. n. death, destruction.
4. v. transitive, obsolete To dig.
5. v. transitive, obsolete To carve or cut, as letters or figures, on some hard substance; to engrave.
6. v. transitive, obsolete To carve out or give shape to, by cutting with a chisel; to sculpture; as, to grave an image.
7. v. transitive, obsolete To impress deeply (on the mind); to fix indelibly.
8. v. transitive, obsolete To entomb; to bury.
9. v. transitive, obsolete, nautical To clean, as a vessel's bottom, of barnacles, grass, etc., and pay it over with pitch — so called because graves or greaves was formerly used for this purpose.
10. v. intransitive, obsolete To write or delineate on hard substances, by means of incised lines; to practice engraving.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. (Naut.) To clean, as a vessel's bottom, of barnacles, grass, etc., and pay it over with pitch; -- so called because graves or greaves was formerly used for this purpose.
2. adj. obsolete Of great weight; heavy; ponderous.
3. adj. Of importance; momentous; weighty; influential; sedate; serious; -- said of character, relations, etc.
4. adj. Not light or gay; solemn; sober; plain.
5. adj. Not acute or sharp; low; deep; -- said of sound.
6. adj. Slow and solemn in movement.
7. v. To dig. [Obs.] Chaucer.
8. v. To carve or cut, as letters or figures, on some hard substance; to engrave.
9. v. To carve out or give shape to, by cutting with a chisel; to sculpture.
10. v. To impress deeply (on the mind); to fix indelibly.
11. v. obsolete To entomb; to bury.
12. v. To write or delineate on hard substances, by means of incised lines; to practice engraving.
13. n. An excavation in the earth as a place of burial; also, any place of interment; a tomb; a sepulcher. Hence: Death; destruction.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. carve, cut, or etch into a material or surface
2. adj. of great gravity or crucial import; requiring serious thought
3. adj. dignified and somber in manner or character and committed to keeping promises
4. n. a mark (`) placed above a vowel to indicate pronunciation
5. n. a place for the burial of a corpse (especially beneath the ground and marked by a tombstone)
6. n. death of a person
7. adj. causing fear or anxiety by threatening great harm
8. v. shape (a material like stone or wood) by whittling away at it