different between drear vs grievous

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /d???/

Etymology 1

Shortening of dreary.

Adjective

drear (comparative drearer, superlative drearest)

1. (poetic) Dreary.
   • 1794, William Blake, Earth's Answer, lines 1-2

     Earth raised up her head
     From the darkness dread and drear,

   • 1874, James Thomson, The City of Dreadful Night

     I spoke, perplexed by something in the signs
     Of desolation I had seen and heard
     In this drear pilgrimage to ruined shrines:

   • 1922, A. E. Housman, Last Poems, XXVIII, lines 1-2

     Now dreary dawns the eastern light,
     And fall of eve is drear, [...]

Etymology 2

Back-formation from dreary.

Noun

drear (plural drears)

1. (obsolete) Gloom; sadness.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, VI.2:

     She thankt him deare / Both for that newes he did to her impart, / And for the courteous care which he did beare / Both to her love and to her selfe in that sad dreare.

Anagrams

• Rader, arder, arred, darer, rared, rear'd, reard

English

Alternative forms

• greuous (obsolete)
• grievious, grevious (less common / nonstandard outside dialects)

Etymology

From grieve, from Middle English greven, from Old French grever, from Latin grav? (“I burden”). Developed in the 13th century.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??i?.v?s/
• Rhymes: -i?v?s
• (nonstandard outside dialects) IPA^(key): /??i?.vi?.?s/ (often used in conjunction with the spelling grievious)

Adjective

grievous (comparative more grievous, superlative most grievous)

1. Causing grief, pain or sorrow.
   • 1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

     As for the captain, his wounds were grievous indeed but not dangerous.

2. Serious, grave, dire or dangerous.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:lamentable

Translations

Anagrams

• grevious