Etymograph

English

grim

Grim comes from Old English grimm ‘fierce, savage, terrible, cruel, angry’, and goes back to Proto-Germanic *grimmaz.

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*grimmaz‘grim, grimly, fierce’reconstructed
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*grimm‘grim, angry’reconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150grimm‘fierce, savage, terrible, cruel, angry’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500grim
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1535same form

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Earlier history uncertain.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*grimmaz‘grim, grimly, fierce’reconstructed
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*grimm‘grim, angry’reconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150grimm‘fierce, savage, terrible, cruel, angry’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500grim
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1535same form

Earliest quotation: 1535, Myles Coverdale: “The LORDE shall be grymme vpon them, and destroye…”

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *gʰrem- ‘to resound, thunder, grumble, roar’

ground, groin, grunting, pogrom, 5 more

Today it means

adj Dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Proto-Germanic *grimmaz / grim

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