grimness

English

Etymology

From Middle English grimnesse, from Old English grimnes (“severity, fierceness, cruelty”), equivalent to grim +‎ -ness.

Noun

grimness (usually uncountable, plural grimnesses)

  1. The characteristic or quality of being grim.
    • 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 202:
      This one was almost featureless, as if still in the making, with an aspect of monotonous grimness.
    • 2007, George Woodcock, Dawn and the Darkest Hour: A Study of Aldous Huxley, page 79:
      This is a good example of Huxley's method of setting off against each other the frivolities of the artificial world and the grimnesses of the real one […]
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