gruesome--prophetes.ai

gruesome, a. literary and dial.
  (ˈgruːsəm)
  Forms: 6, 8 growsome, 8 grousome, groosome, 9 (grausome), grewsome, gruesome.
  [f. grue v.¹ + -some. Cf. MDu. grou-, grusaem, Du. gruwzaam = MHG. grû(we)sam (G. grausam), horrible, cruel, fierce, inhuman.
  App. introduced into literary use by Scott. The spelling gruesome did not become well established until after 1850; grewsome is still occasionally used. Lytton's grausome is after G. grausam (cf. grauly).]
  1. Inspiring fear, awe, or horror; such as to cause one to shudder with fear; fearful, horrible; grisly.

1570 Levins Manip. 162/10 Growsome, horridus. 1781 J. Hutton Tour to Caves 90 Growsome, ugly, disagreeable. 1785 Burns Halloween xxiii, He takes a swirlie, auld moss⁓oak, For some black, grousome carlin. 1816 Scott Old Mort. xli, He's as grave and grewsome an auld Dutchman as e'er I saw. 1848 Lytton K. Arthur v. xlix, With many a grausome shape unutterable, Limn'd were the cavernous sepulchral walls. 1855 Browning Lover's Quarrel v, He has taken a bride To his gruesome side. 1857 Hughes Tom Brown i. i, A grewsome sound between a moan and a roar. 1874 B. Harte Wan Lee, The dim, mysterious half-light of the cellar falling in a gruesome way upon the misshapen bulk of a Chinese deity. 1877 A. B. Edwards Up Nile xxi. 649 It is like a feverish sleep, troubled by gruesome dreams. 1891 Chamb. Jrnl. 4 Apr. 219 A few broken, leafless, doddered stumps of trees..help to give the dark chill marsh a more gruesome and uncanny aspect.

Comb. 1878 Besant & Rice Celia's Arb. xxxii. (1887) 235 It was a gruesome-looking shadow, with high back and head thrust forward.

2. Full of or inspired by fear. rare.

1869 Blackmore Lorna D. vii, These trees and pools..are making a gruesome coward of thee. 1880 H. James Hawthorne 87 Some of his companions..took..rather a gruesome view of his want of articulate enthusiasm.

Hence ˈgruesomely adv., ˈgruesomeness.

1886 Pall Mall G. 30 Sept. 2/2 Mr. Matthews, with much of Poe's ingenuity, has a touch, too, of Poe's gruesomeness. 1893 Columbus Dispatch (Ohio) 26 Jan., The wind whistles and moans among them grewsomely.