GRAVE

I. transitive verb (~d; ~n or ~d; graving) Etymology: Middle English, from Old English grafan; akin to Old High German graban to dig, Old Church Slavic pogreti to bury Date: before 12th century dig , excavate , 2. to carve or shape with a chisel ; sculpture , to carve or cut (as letters or figures) into a hard surface ; en~ , to impress or fix (as a thought) deeply, II. noun Etymology: Middle English, from Old English græf; akin to Old High German grab ~, Old English grafan to dig Date: before 12th century an excavation for burial of a body, 2. death 1a, death 4, III. transitive verb (~d; graving) Etymology: Middle English ~n Date: 15th century to clean and pay with pitch , IV. adjective (~r; ~st) see: grieve Date: 1539 1. authoritative , weighty , meriting serious consideration ; important , likely to produce great harm or danger , significantly serious ; considerable , great , having a serious and dignified quality or demeanor , drab in color ; somber , low-pitched in sound, 5. having the form ˋ, marked with a ~ accent, of the variety indicated by a ~ accent, see: serious ~ly adverb ~ness noun V. noun Date: 1609 a ~ accent ˋ used to show that a vowel is pronounced with a fall of pitch (as in ancient Greek), that a vowel has a certain quality (as è in French), that a final e is stressed and close and that a final o is stressed and low (as in Italian), that a syllable has a degree of stress between maximum and minimum (as in phonetic transcription), or that the e of the English ending -ed is to be pronounced (as in “this cursèd day”), VI. adverb or adjective Etymology: Italian, literally, ~, from Latin gravis Date: 1683 slowly and solemnly