☼ Concept Map

''gross'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

↩ 🔳 🔳 🔳

Primary

⁀➴

''gross'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260331180822-00-⌔

gross - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

gross (comparativegrosser or more gross, superlativegrossest or most gross)

  • remarkably great, big, vast in an often unpleasant way; (of behaviour) Highly or conspicuously offensive.
    • ✤ Synonyms: serious, flagrant, shameful, appalling, egregious, unmitigated
    • ✤ a gross mistake; gross injustice; gross negligence; a gross insult
    • ✤ Henry IV. My gracious uncle, let me know my fault:/On what condition stands it and wherein?/Edmund of Langley. Even in condition of the worst degree,/In gross rebellion and detested treason:1
    • ✤ Your very faults, how gross soere, to me/Have something pleasing in ’em.2
    • ✤ […] I thank Heaven I have had Time to reflect on my past Life, where though I cannot charge myself with any gross Villainy, yet I can discern Follies and Vices too sufficient to repent and to be ashamed of;3
    • ✤ [H]ad his actions been what Wickham represented them, so gross a violation of every thing right could hardly have been concealed from the world; […]4
    • ✤ [H]e has been found guilty, on the clearest evidence, first, of stealing a valuable motor-car; secondly, of driving to the public danger; and, thirdly, of gross impertinence to the rural police.5
  • (of an amount) Excluding any deductions; including all associated amounts.
    • ✤ Synonyms: whole, entire, overall, total, aggregate
    • ✤ Antonym: net
    • ✤ * gross domestic product; gross income; gross weight*
    • ✤ What is the gross sum that I owe thee?6
    • ✤ For a man of his habits the house and the hundred and twenty pounds a year which he had inherited from his mother were enough to supply all worldly needs. Resources do not depend upon gross amounts, but upon the proportion of spendings to takings.7
    • ✤ But please notice that even these wretched earnings are gross earnings. On top of this there are all kinds of stoppages which are deducted from the miner’s wages every week.8
  • (sciences, pathology) Seen without a microscope (usually for a tissue or an organ); at a large scale; not detailed.
    • ✤ Synonym: macroscopic
    • ✤ Antonym: microscopic
    • ✤ * gross anatomy*
    • ✤ We are accustomed to look for the gross and immediate effect and to ignore all else. Unless this appears promptly and in such obvious form that it cannot be ignored, we deny the existence of hazard.9
  • (informal, Australia, Canada, US) Causing disgust.
    • ✤ Synonyms: disgusting, gro, grody, grotesque, grotty, nasty, revolting, yucky
    • ✤ I threw up all over the bed. It was totally gross.
    • ✤ Mary Ann spent her lunch hour at Hastings, picking out just the right tie for Norman. The hint might not be terribly subtle, she decided, but somebody had to do something about that gross, gravy-stained clip-on number.10
    • ✤ The next-door neighbor’s cat coughed up a hairball one day and the hair was not the cat’s. “That’s so gross!”11
  • Lacking refinement in behaviour or manner; offending a standard of morality.
    • ✤ Synonyms: coarse, rude, vulgar, obscene, impure
    • ✤ Pog. Forsooth my Maister said that hee loved her almost as well as hee loved parmasent, and swore […] that shee wanted such a Nose as his was, to be as pretty a young woeman, as was any in Parma. Do. Oh grose!12
    • ✤ Verjuice. She certainly has Talents./Lady Sneerwell. But her manner is gross.13
    • ✤ But man to know God is a difficulty, except by a mean he himself inure, which is to know God’s creatures that be: at first them that be of the grossest nature, and then […] them that be more pure.14
    • ✤ All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill. It was ugly, gross. Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech. In the present connexion—or rather as a transition from the subject that started their conversation—such talk had been distressingly out of place.15
  • (of a product) Lacking refinement; not of high quality.
    • ✤ Synonyms: coarse, rough, unrefined
    • ✤ Antonym: fine
    • ✤ The flowers of Rubens are gross and rude […]16
    • ✤ He scorned my wholesome kennel fare, toothing out dainties and leaving the grosser portions to be finished by the other dogs.17
  • (of a substance) Dense, heavy.
    • ✤ ⁠Thy spirit ere our fatal loss/⁠Did ever rise from high to higher;/⁠As mounts the heavenward altar-fire,/As flies the lighter thro’ the gross.18
  • (of a person) Heavy in proportion to one’s height; having a lot of excess flesh.
    • ✤ Synonyms: great, large, bulky, fat, obese
    • ✤ Kitty noticed that her sister’s pregnancy had blunted her features and in her black dress she looked gross and blousy.19
    • ✤ He collected a number of injuries that stopped him jousting, and then in middle age became stout, eventually gross.20
  • (now chiefly poetic) Difficult or impossible to see through.
    • ✤ Synonyms: thick, heavy
    • ✤ Couragious Lancaster, imbrace thy king,/And as grosse vapours perish by the sunne,/Euen so let hatred with thy soueraigne smile,21
    • ✤ For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.22
    • ✤ A pestilent and most corrosive steam,/Like a gross fog Boeotian, rising fast,/And fast condensed upon the dewy sash,/Asks egress;23
    • ✤ [A] larger life/Upon his own impinging, with swift glimpse/Of spacious circles luminous with mind,/To which the ethereal substance of his own/Seems but gross cloud to make that visible,/Touched to a sudden glory round the edge.24
  • (archaic) Not sensitive in perception or feeling.
    • ✤ Synonyms: dull, witless
    • ✤ For he is groſſe and like the maſſie earth,/That mooues not vpwards, nor by princely deeds/Doth meane to ſoare aboue the highest ſort.25
    • ✤ For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.26
    • ✤ A thousand liveried Angels lacky her [the chaste soul],/Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,/And in cleer dream, and solemn vision/Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear.27
  • (obsolete) Easy to perceive.
    • ✤ Synonyms: obvious, clear
    • ✤ […] though the truth of it stands off as gross/As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it.28

Noun

gross (countable and uncountable, plural gross or grosses)

📊 ➺

  • Twelve dozen = 144.
    • ✤ We need to order three gross of torx screws for next week.
  • The total amount (of goods, money, etc) before taxes, expenses, exceptions, tares, or similar deductions are subtracted.
    • ✤ Coordinate term: net
  • The bulk; the mass.

Verb

gross (third-person singular simple present grosses, present participle grossing, simple past and past participle grossed)

  • (transitive) To earn money, not including expenses.
    • ✤ The movie grossed three million on the first weekend.
    • ✤ The film grossed $464 million worldwide, ensconcing her in the Hollywood A-list.29

Etymology

From Middle English gros (“large, thick, full-bodied; coarse, unrefined, simple”), from Old French gros, from Latin grossus (“big, fat, thick”, in Late Latin also “coarse, rough”), of uncertain further origin but perhaps related to Proto-Celtic ﹡brassos (“great, violent”).

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA: /ɡɹəʊs/
  • (US) IPA: /ɡɹoʊs/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • (Philippines, nonstandard) IPA: /ɡɹɔs/
  • (Scotland, dialectal) IPA: /ɡɹos/
  • Homophone: Gross
  • Rhymes: -əʊs

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]: ↩

  2. 1682, Aphra Behn, “The City-Heiress”, in et al. ‎, London: D. Brown, act IV, scene 1, page 40: ↩

  3. 1749, Henry Fielding, chapter 10, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume, London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book XVIII, page 336: ↩

  4. 1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], Pride and Prejudice: […], volume, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC: ↩

  5. 1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, chapter 6, in The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC: ↩

  6. c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]. Epilogue.”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]: ↩

  7. 1878 January–December, Thomas Hardy, chapter I, in The Return of the Native […], volume, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], published 1878, →OCLC: ↩

  8. 1937 March 8, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter III, in The Road to Wigan Pier, London: Victor Gollancz, published May 1937, →OCLC, part I, page 41: ↩

  9. 1962, Rachel Carson, chapter 12, in Silent Spring, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, page 190: ↩

  10. 1978, Armistead Maupin, “Ties That Bind”, in Tales of the City ‎, New York: Harper & Row, published 1989, page 293: ↩

  11. 2002, Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex ‎, New York: Picador, Book 3, p. 306: ↩

  12. c. 1626 or 1629–1633 (first performance), [John Ford], ’Tis Pitty Shee’s a Whore […], London: […] Nicholas Okes for Richard Collins, […], published 1633, →OCLC, Act I: ↩

  13. 1777 May 8 (first performance), [Richard Brinsley Sheridan], The School for Scandal; a Comedy; […], Dublin: [s.n.], published 1780, →OCLC,: ↩

  14. 1874, A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Dodsley et al.: ↩

  15. 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC: ↩

  16. 1860, John Ruskin, chapter 10, in Modern Painters […], volume V, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC,, § 5: ↩

  17. 1944, Emily Carr, “Lorenzo Was Registered”, in The House of All Sorts ‎: ↩

  18. 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XL”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 62: ↩

  19. 1925, W. Somerset Maugham, chapter 79, in The Painted Veil, London: Heinemann, published 1934: ↩

  20. 2013, Hilary Mantel, “Royal Bodies”, in London Review of Books, 35.IV: ↩

  21. 1594, Christopher Marlow[e], The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Henry Bell, […], published 1622, →OCLC,: ↩

  22. 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Isaiah 60:2: ↩

  23. 1785, William Cowper, “Book III. The Garden.”, in The Task, a Poem, […], London: […] J[oseph] Johnson; […], →OCLC, page 116: ↩

  24. 1869 December (indicated as 1870 January), James Russell Lowell, “The Cathedral”, in James Thomas Fields, editor, The Atlantic Monthly: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics, volume XXV, number CXLVII, Boston, Mass.: Fields, Osgood, & Co., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 9: ↩

  25. c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene vii: ↩

  26. 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 13:15: ↩

  27. 1634 October 9 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637, →OCLC; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903, →OCLC: ↩

  28. 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]: ↩

  29. 2014 January 21, Hermione Hoby, “Julia Roberts interview for August: Osage County –‘I might actually go to hell for this…’: Julia Roberts reveals why her violent, Oscar-nominated performance in August: Osage County made her feel ‘like a terrible person’ [print version:‘I might actually go to hell for this…’ (18 January 2014, p. R4)]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review) ‎: ↩

Link to original

Secondary

• • •