Thesaurus
grim
adjective
Synonyms and Antonyms of GRIM
1
harsh and threatening in manner or appearance <a grim and desolate landscape> <a grim and short-tempered shopkeeper who didn't exactly invite friendly conversation>
Synonyms austere, dour, fierce, flinty, forbidding, gruff, intimidating, lowering (also louring), rough, rugged, severe, stark, steely, stern, ungentle
Related Words bleak, cold, hostile, inhospitable, inimical, unfriendly, unsympathetic; adamant, bound, determined, firm, intent, purposeful, resolute, resolved, steadfast, unflinching; fixed, hard, hardened, hardheaded, immovable, implacable, inflexible, ironhanded, mulish, obdurate, obstinate, rigid, self-willed, set, stiff, stubborn, unbending, uncompromising, unrelenting, unyielding, willful (or wilful); immutable, unchangeable; black, cheerless, dark, gloomy, glum, joyless, melancholic, moody, morose, sulky, sullen, surly; brooding, grave, humorless, melancholy, serious, sober, sobersided, solemn, somber (or sombre), staid, unsmiling, weighty
2
difficult to endure <this winter is supposed to be particularly grim, so stock up on firewood>
Synonyms bitter, brutal, burdensome, cruel, excruciating, grievous, grim, hard, hardhanded, heavy, inhuman, murderous, onerous, oppressive, rough, rugged, searing, severe, stiff, tough, trying
Related Words austere, bleak, comfortless, discomforting, forbidding, inhospitable, spartan, uncomfortable; biting, inclement, intemperate, wild; rigorous, strict, stringent; agonizing, heartbreaking, heartrending, painful, wretched; crushing, grinding, overwhelming, wearing; insufferable, insupportable, intolerable, unbearable, unendurable; harrowing, tortuous; bad, disagreeable, hostile, unfriendly, unpleasant
3
showing no signs of slackening or yielding in one's purpose <with grim determination, the woman worked three jobs to put her fatherless children through college>
Related Words persevering, persistent, tenacious; hard, hardheaded, headstrong, intractable, mulish, obdurate, opinionated, peevish, pertinacious, perverse, pigheaded, self-willed, stubborn, uncooperative, willful (or wilful); merciless, ruthless, unforgiving
Near Antonyms slackening, softening, yielding; impotent, invertebrate, slack, spineless, weak; complaisant, obliging, pliable, pliant
4
violently unfriendly or aggressive in disposition <grim warriors heading into battle>
Related Words argumentative, assaultive, bellicose, belligerent, brawly, chippy, combative, confrontational, discordant, disputatious, feisty, gladiatorial, militant, pugnacious, scrappy, warlike; bare-knuckle (also bare-knuckled or bare-knuckles), blood-and-guts, in-your-face, take-no-prisoners; contentious, quarrelsome, truculent; menacing, threatening; bestial, brute, inhuman, inhumane; barbaric, uncivilized, wild; heartless, implacable, merciless, pitiless, relentless, ruthless, unrelenting, wanton; bloodthirsty, bloody, homicidal, murdering, murderous, sanguinary, sanguine; rapacious, ravenous, voracious
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