grave

1 having a matter of importance as its topic leaving gossip and celebrities to other magazines, this journal focuses on the grave issues confronting the nation Synonyms serious, heavy, weightyRelated Words big, consequential, eventful, important, major, material, meaningful, momentous, portentous, significant, solid, substantialNear Antonyms frivolous, insignificant, lite, little, Mickey Mouse, minor, silly, slight, small, trivial, unimportantAntonyms light, unserious

2 involving potential loss or injury going over Niagara Falls poses a grave danger Synonyms dangerous, grievous, hazardous, jeopardizing, menacing, parlous, perilous, risky, serious, threatening, unhealthy, unsafe, venturesomeRelated Words dicey, insecure, precarious, treacherous, uncertain; ultrahazardous; chance, haphazard, random; distressing, sickening, unpleasant; ugly, wicked; adverse, bad, baleful, baneful, deleterious, detrimental, evil, harmful, hurtful, ill, inimical, injurious, malignant, nasty, noxious, pernicious, pestilent; deadly, deathly, destructive, dire, fatal, fateful, fell, killer, lethal, mortal, murderousNear Antonyms advantageous, beneficial, good; ultrasafeAntonyms harmless, innocent, innocuous, nonhazardous, nonthreatening, safe, unthreatening

3 not joking or playful in mood or manner when I asked him how his dog was doing, he looked grave and said, “Not good” Synonyms earnest, serious, humorless, no-nonsense, po-faced [British], sedate, severe, sober, sobersided, solemn, staid, uncomic, unsmiling, weightyRelated Words harsh, stern, strict; businesslike, professional; dignified, distinguished, elevated, serious-minded; gloomy, grimNear Antonyms antic, comic, comical, droll, farcical, funny, hilarious, hysterical (also hysteric), laughable, light, light-headed, ludicrous, ridiculous, riotous, risible, screaming, sidesplitting, uproarious; featherbrained, flighty, frivolous, goofy, harebrained, lighthearted, puerile, scatterbrained; absurd, asinine, balmy, brainless, cockeyed, crazy, cuckoo, daffy, daft, dotty, fatuous, foolish, half-witted, insane, jerky, kooky (also kookie), loony (also looney), lunatic, mad, nonsensical, nutty, preposterous, sappy, screwball, senseless, silly, unwise, wacky (also whacky), weak-minded, witless, zanyAntonyms facetious, flip, flippant, humorous, jesting, jocular, joking, kittenish, ludic, playful

4 having a low musical pitch or range a grave hexachord Synonyms bass, deep, low, throatyRelated Words boomy, tubby; gruff, hoarse, husky, rough, smoky (also smokey)Near Antonyms squeaking, squeaky, squealing, thin; earsplitting, penetrating, piercing, strident; peeping, tinnyAntonyms acute, high, high-pitched, piping, sharp, shrill, treble

to cut (as letters or designs) on a hard surface the doomed climber graved his initials into the rock face Synonyms etch, engrave, incise, inscribe, insculp [archaic]Related Words carve, chisel, sculpt, sculpture; chase, groove, indent, notch; score, trace; affix, impress

1 a final resting place for a dead person the forlorn boy put flowers on his mother's grave Synonyms burial, sepulchre (or sepulcher), sepulture, tomb Related Words catacomb, charnel (also charnel house), columbarium, crypt, mausoleum, vault; cemetery, churchyard, graveyard, potter's field; barrow, mound, tumulus

2 the permanent stopping of all the vital bodily activities a rock star who found his early grave in a plane crash Synonyms curtains, decease, demise, dissolution, doom, end, exit, expiration, expiry, fate, death, great divide, passage, passing, quietus, sleepRelated Words casualty, fatality; martyrdom, self-destruction, self-murder, self-slaughter, suicide; annihilation, destruction, ending, extermination, ruin; assassination, execution, killing, massacre, slaughterNear Antonyms existence, life; creation, genesis, origination, riseAntonyms birth, nativity

3 the state of being dead a terrible fear of the grave Synonyms dead, deadness, death, lifelessness, nothingness, sleepRelated Words mortalityNear Antonyms immortality; life span, lifetimeAntonyms existence, life