Meanings
plural grimnesses
- uncountableusuallyThe characteristic or quality of being grim.
This one was almost featureless, as if still in the making, with an aspect of monotonous grimness.
1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 2021 more example
This is a good example of Huxley's method of setting off against each other the frivolities of the artificial world and the grimnesses of the real one […]
2007, George Woodcock, Dawn and the Darkest Hour: A Study of Aldous Huxley, page 79
Synonyms & antonyms
nounsomething hard to endure
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Old Englishgrimnes“severity, fierceness, cruelty”
- Middle Englishgrimnesse
- Englishgrimness
From Middle English grimnesse, from Old English grimnes (“severity, fierceness, cruelty”), equivalent to grim + -ness.
More words from Middle English, Old English
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
grimness. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/grimness
“grimness.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/grimness. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “grimness,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/grimness.
Source: grimness on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.