Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A person employed to take care of horses or a stable.
  • noun A man who is about to be married or has recently been married.
  • noun One of several officers in an English royal household.
  • noun A man.
  • noun A male servant.
  • intransitive verb To care for the appearance of; to make neat and trim.
  • intransitive verb To clean and brush (an animal).
  • intransitive verb To remove dirt and parasites from the skin, fur, or feathers of (another animal).
  • intransitive verb To prepare, as for a specific position or purpose.
  • intransitive verb Sports To prepare (terrain) for participants in a sport, as by packing down new snow and leveling moguls for skiers.
  • intransitive verb To care for one's appearance.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To tend or care for, as a horse; curry, feed, etc. (a horse): sometimes, in horse slang, used with reference to a person.
  • noun A man newly married, or about to be married; a bridegroom: the correlative of bride.
  • noun A boy; a youth; a young man.
  • noun A boy or man in service; a personal attendant; a page; a serving-man.
  • noun Specifically A boy or man who has the charge of horses; one who takes care of the horses or the stable.
  • noun One of several officers in the English royal household: as, groom of the stole; groom of the chamber.
  • noun See groom.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To tend or care for, or to curry or clean, as a, horse.
  • noun A boy or young man; a waiter; a servant; especially, a man or boy who has charge of horses, or the stable.
  • noun One of several officers of the English royal household, chiefly in the lord chamberlain's department
  • noun A man recently married, or about to be married; a bridegroom.
  • noun formerly an officer in the English royal household, who attended to the furnishing of the king's lodgings and had certain privileges.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A person who cares for horses.
  • verb To attend to one's appearance and clothing.
  • verb To care for horses or other animals by brushing and cleaning them.
  • verb To prepare a ski slope for skiers
  • verb transitive To attempt to gain the trust of a minor or adult with the intention of subjecting them to abusive or exploitative behaviour such as sexual abuse, human trafficking or sexual slavery.
  • noun A man who is about to become or has recently become part of a married couple. Short form of bridegroom.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb educate for a future role or function
  • noun a man who has recently been married
  • noun someone employed in a stable to take care of the horses
  • verb care for one's external appearance
  • verb give a neat appearance to
  • noun a man participant in his own marriage ceremony

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English grom. N., sense 2, short for bridegroom.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English grom, grome ("man-child, boy, youth"), of uncertain origin. Apparently related to Middle Dutch grom ("boy"), Old Icelandic grómr, gromr ("man, manservant, boy"), Old French gromme ("manservant"), from the same Germanic root. Possibly from Old English *grōma, from Proto-Germanic *grōmô, related to *grōanan (“to grow”), though uncertain as *grōanan was used typically of plants; its secondary meaning being "to turn green".

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

1604, short for bridegroom ("husband-to-be"), from Middle English brydgrome, bridegome ("bridegroom"), from Old English brȳdguma ("bridegroom"), from brȳd ("bride") + guma ("man, hero"), from Proto-Germanic *gumô (“man, person”), from Proto-Indo-European *dhg'həmo-, *dhg'homo-.

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