D. H. Lawrence
Did you know?
An angry grizzly bear could certainly inspire fear, so grizzly and grisly must be related, right? Grizzly comes from the Middle English adjective grisel, meaning "gray." Like its close relative grizzled, grizzly means "sprinkled or streaked with gray." In other words, the grizzly bear got its name because the hairs of its brownish to buff coat usually have silver or pale tips, creating a grizzled effect, not because it causes terror. Grisly is related to Old English grislic, which comes from a verb meaning "to fear" and which gives grisly its "terrifying" sense.
Examples of grisly in a Sentence
The Editorial Board, Chicago Tribune, 2 Apr. 2025
South Carolina authorities on Friday morning made a grisly discovery inside a family's stately Greer home.
—Audrey Conklin, FOXNews.com, 31 Mar. 2025
All of what happens in Weak Hero Class 1 is told in flashback in the Weak Hero webtoon, as part of Si-eun’s grisly backstory.
—Kayti Burt, Time, 26 Mar. 2025
Authorities who were responding to reports of screaming inside a home in Azusa over the weekend arrived to discover a grisly scene, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said.
—Anthony Solorzano, Los Angeles Times, 17 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for grisly
Cite this Entry
“Grisly.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grisly. Accessed 7 Apr. 2025.
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