Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Inspiring repugnance; gruesome. See Synonyms at ghastly.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Such as to inspire fear; frightful; terrible; gruesome; grim: as, a grisly countenance; a grisly specter.
- Frightfully; terribly.
- An obsolete spelling of grizzly.
Wiktionary
- adj. horrifyingly repellent; terrifying, gruesome
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Frightful; horrible; dreadful; harsh.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. shockingly repellent; inspiring horror
Etymologies
- Late Old English grisliċ. Compare German grausen and Danish grusom. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English grisli, from Old English grislīc; see ghrēi- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
““The Veldt”, also by Bradbury, which chronicled in grisly fashion the dangers of holodeck technology.”
“However, as their team begins to get picked off in grisly manners not fit for television, they realize they are in over their heads.”
“Are journalists ever going to get beyond the word grisly?”
““Of course,” he is told bluntly, though he then hears, in grisly detail, about the sacrificial murder of a Vermont woodsman.”
“[Prosecutor describes housewife's rape, killing in grisly detail, Newsday, March 24, 2006].”
“While undergoing hypnotherapy, a middle-aged nun unexpectedly recalls the grisly details of a cold-blooded killing she witnessed when she was five years old.”
“All are charged in what police call a grisly plot to kidnap, torture and behead a British Muslim soldier.”
“But today the president acknowledged the terrorists are still a major threat all around the world and took the extraordinary step of quoting bin Laden's own words in letters to followers, also what the president called grisly al Qaeda training manuals to dramatize how dangerous the terrorist group is right now.”
“Ross recalled grisly details from his cram lessons.”
“It is an effort to the hosts, who regard the whole business as a mere paying off of debts; and an effort to the guests, who, as they go to dress, recall grisly memories of former similar experiences.”
The Cook's Decameron: a study in taste, containing over two hundred recipes for Italian dishes
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘grisly’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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sdamle1
echt
echt, apocalypse, resurgence, forthright, logorrhea, mercurial, torrid, exorcise, obscure, intrusive, morose, vindictive and 100 more...
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EN - confusables
Similar words meaning different things
torturous, wreathe, tortuous, wreath, titivate, titillate, stationary, storey, septic, principal, principle, story and 134 more...
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Beautiful and Ugly
Beautiful, attractive, well-formed
Ugly, unattractive, malformedadorable, alluring, angelic, appealing, appetizing, attractive, beaming, beauteous, beautiful, becoming, beguiling, bewitching and 180 more...
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macabre
words associated with the macabre & horror.
( open list, randomness )
more:
http://www.wordnik.co...ghastly, grisly, culeus, silly, gruesome, horrid, morbid, angelic, shocking, hideous, ghoulish, frightful and 136 more...
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my fab list
blowsabella, aperçu, froideur, salubrious, abject, gallipot, mumchance, wainscot, virago, macerate, lascivious, clandestine and 181 more...
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Words that look like adverbs but aren't
manly, womanly, ungainly, slovenly, homily, costly, dastardly, family, sparkly, wrinkly, oily, orderly and 69 more...
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Fearlobes
EEK! Emotion words and words associated with fear. Let's avoid -phobia words.
terrified, threatened, paralyzed, afraid, tormented, frightened, scared, blench, worried, cowardly, fretful, menaced and 57 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1907 more...
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Miss Sunshine
she's such a joy.
bereaved, bitter, cheerless, dejected, depressed, despairing, despondent, disconsolate, dismal, distressed, doleful, downcast and 405 more...
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newGRE
mostly from magoosh
imbue, verge on, nonchalant, deliberate, timorous, futile, provisional, dissect, checked, tinged, alluring, visionary and 1046 more...
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My Revised GRE Preparation List
Words from the new GRE : This list consists mostly of words from the book Magoosh-GRE-vocab-ebook, which is one of the best vocab materials available, especially if you have started preparing one ...
alacrity, prosaic, veracity, paucity, contrite, trite, maintain, laconic, pugnacious, disparate, egregious, innocuous and 533 more...
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CCW
Commonly Confused Words
wreath, wreathe, titillate, titivate, proscribe, prescribe, pedal, peddle, mettle, metal, palette, palate and 132 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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Daily
Daily Vocab List
lull, pious, lurid, objurgate, insurgent, lewd, patio, onus, lampoon, geisha, larceny, maim and 206 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for grisly.
bilby "More birds flew in through this hole; those which still remained in the guest-room rushed into the study. Flesh fell from Stark's twitching skeleton in a grisly rain."
- 'The Dark Half', Stephen King.
Dec 31, 2007