gross

Etymology

From Middle English gross (“whole, entire; flagrant, monstrous”), from Old French gros (“big, thick, large, stout”), from Late Latin grossus (“thick in diameter, coarse”), and Medieval Latin grossus (“great, big”), from Old High German grōz (“big, thick, coarse”), from Proto-Germanic *grautaz (“large, great, thick, coarse grained, unrefined”), from Proto-Indo-European *ghrewə- (“to fell, put down, fall in”). Cognate with French grossier (“gross”). See also French dialectal grôt, groût (“large”) (Berry) and grô (“large”) (Burgundy), Catalan gros (“big”), Dutch groot (“big, large”), German groß (“large”), English great. More at great.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ɡɹəʊs/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ɡɹoʊs/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Homophone: Gross
• Rhymes: -əʊs

Adjective

gross (comparative grosser or more gross, superlative grossest or most gross)

1. (slang, Canada, US) Disgusting, nasty.
2. Coarse, rude, vulgar, obscene, or impure.
   • 1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, Act I, Scene 1,

     Verjuice. She certainly has Talents.

     Lady Sneerwell. But her manner is gross.

   • 1874: Dodsley et al., A Select Collection of Old English Plays

     But man to know God is a difficulty, except by a mean he himself inure, which is to know God’s creatures that be: at first them that be of the grossest nature, and then [...] them that be more pure.

   • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 12, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

     All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill. It was ugly, gross. Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech. In the present connexion—or rather as a transition from the subject that started their conversation—such talk had been distressingly out of place.

3. Coarse, unrefined.
   • 1944, Emily Carr, The House of All Sorts, “Lorenzo Was Registered,”

     He scorned my wholesome kennel fare, toothing out dainties and leaving the grosser portions to be finished by the other dogs.

4. Great, large, bulky, or fat.
   • 2013, Hilary Mantel, ‘Royal Bodies’, London Review of Books, 35.IV:

     He collected a number of injuries that stopped him jousting, and then in middle age became stout, eventually gross.

5. Great, serious, flagrant, or shameful.

   a gross mistake;  gross injustice;  gross negligence

6. The whole amount; entire; total before any deductions.
   • 2013 August 3, “Boundary problems”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:

     Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too. GDP measures the total value of output in an economic territory. Its apparent simplicity explains why it is scrutinised down to tenths of a percentage point every month.

   gross domestic product

7. Not sensitive in perception or feeling; dull; witless.
   • Milton

     Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear.

8. (pathology) Seen without a microscope, macroscopic, usually for a tissue or an organ.

Noun

gross (plural gross or grosses)

1. Twelve dozen = 144.
2. The total nominal earnings or amount, before taxes, expenses, exceptions or similar are deducted. That which remains after all deductions is called net.
3. The bulk, the mass, the masses.

Verb

gross (third-person singular simple present grosses, present participle grossing, simple past and past participle grossed)

1. To earn money, not including expenses.

   The movie grossed three million on the first weekend.

   • 2014 January 21, Hermione Hoby, “Julia Roberts interview for August: Osage County – 'I might actually go to hell for this ...': Julia Roberts reveals why her violent, Oscar-nominated performance in August: Osage County made her feel 'like a terrible person' [print version: 'I might actually go to hell for this ...' (18 January 2014, p. R4)]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review)‎:

     The film grossed $464 million worldwide, ensconcing her in the Hollywood A-list.

Derived terms

• gross receipts
• gross weight
• gross income

Related terms

• engross
• grocer, grocery, groceries

Anagrams

• Sgros, Sorgs

Adjective

gross (comparative grösser, superlative am grössten)

1. Switzerland and Liechtenstein standard spelling of groß (in the past, this form was also found in other regions).
   • Bach, Cantata BWV 71: Gott ist mein König

     Glück, Heil und grösser Sieg

     Good fortune, salvation and great victory

Etymology

Compare German groß, Dutch groot, English great.

Adjective

gross (comparative greesser, superlative greescht)

1. big, large

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡrɔs/

Noun

gross n

1. a gross, twelve dozen (144)