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comparative grimmer, superlative grimmest
Dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding. quotations examples
Cristiana Paşca Palmer, the executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, said the destruction of the world’s biggest rainforest was a grim reminder that a fresh approach needed to stabilise the climate and prevent ecosystems from declining to a point of no return, with dire consequences for humanity.
2019 August 30, Jonathan Watts, “Amazon fires show world heading for point of no return, says UN”, in The Guardian
It's been a grim start to the year.
2022 January 12, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Unhappy start to 2022”, in RAIL, number 948, page 3
Rigid and unrelenting. examples
Ghastly or sinister. quotations examples
In movie terms, it suggests Paul Verhoeven in Robocop/Starship Troopers mode, an R-rated bloodbath where the grim spectacle of children murdering each other on television is bread-and-circuses for the age of reality TV, enforced by a totalitarian regime to keep the masses at bay.
2012 March 22, Scott Tobias, “The Hunger Games”, in AV Club
Disgusting; gross. quotations examples
Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet;
1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 1, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, page 1
(obsolete) Fierce, cruel, furious.
third-person singular simple present grims, present participle grimming, simple past and past participle grimmed
(transitive, rare) To make grim; to give a stern or forbidding aspect to.
plural grims
(MLE, slang, probably a fashionable word around 2006, now dated) A promiscuous woman. quotations examples
You got a new girl and she looks choong (Choong)But you didn't know your girl was a grim[…]Your girl she's a grim, I wouldn't have no grim as my ting
2006 July 1, “Grim” (track 8), in Wiley (lyrics), Eskiboy: Da 2nd Phaze
countable and uncountable, plural grims
(obsolete) Anger, wrath.
(obsolete) A specter, ghost, haunting spirit.