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.

  • noun A man newly married, or about to be married; a bridegroom: the correlative of bride.
  • 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 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 man who is about to become or has recently become part of a married couple. Short form of bridegroom.
  • 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.

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

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-.

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".

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