# gruesome

> English word · Adjective · IPA /ˈɡɹuːsəm/ · frequency rank #20,371

## Definitions
1. Repellently frightful and shocking; ghastly, horrific.
2. Awful, terrible.
3. Of a person: filled with fear; afraid, fearful.

## Etymology
From grue (“(archaic except Northern England, Scotland) to be frightened; to shudder with fear”) + -some (suffix meaning ‘characterized by some specific condition or quality, usually to a considerable degree’ forming adjectives and nouns), probably popularized by the Scottish novelist and poet Walter Scott (1771–1832): see, for example, the 1816 quotation.
cognates
* Danish grusom (“cruel; horrible”)
* Middle Dutch grousaem, grusaem (modern Dutch gruwzaam (“cruel; gruesome”))
* Middle High German grûsam, grûwesam (modern German grausam (“cruel”))
* Norwegian Bokmål grusom (“cruel; horrible”)

## Common misspellings (11)
`ggruesome`, `greusome`, `grruesome`, `grueosme`, `gruesmoe`, `gruesoem`, `gruesomme`, `gruessome`, `gruseome`, `guresome`, `rguesome`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/gruesome