gross

adjective

1. 1

   remarkably great, big, vast in an often unpleasant way; (of behaviour) Highly or conspicuously offensive.

   a gross mistake; gross injustice; gross negligence; a gross insult

   Henry IV. My gracious uncle, let me know my fault: / On what condition stands it and wherein? / Edmund of Langley. Even in condition of the worst degree, / In gross rebellion and detested treason:

   Your very faults, how gross soere, to me / Have something pleasing in ’em.

   […] I thank Heaven I have had Time to reflect on my past Life, where though I cannot charge myself with any gross Villainy, yet I can discern Follies and Vices too sufficient to repent and to be ashamed of;

2. 2

   Excluding any deductions; including all associated amounts.

   gross domestic product; gross income; gross weight

   What is the gross sum that I owe thee?

   For a man of his habits the house and the hundred and twenty pounds a year which he had inherited from his mother were enough to supply all worldly needs. Resources do not depend upon gross amounts, but upon the proportion of spendings to takings.

   But please notice that even these wretched earnings are gross earnings. On top of this there are all kinds of stoppages which are deducted from the miner's wages every week.

3. 3

   Seen without a microscope (usually for a tissue or an organ); at a large scale; not detailed.

   gross anatomy

   We are accustomed to look for the gross and immediate effect and to ignore all else. Unless this appears promptly and in such obvious form that it cannot be ignored, we deny the existence of hazard.

4. 4

   informalCausing disgust.

   I threw up all over the bed. It was totally gross.

   Mary Ann spent her lunch hour at Hastings, picking out just the right tie for Norman. The hint might not be terribly subtle, she decided, but somebody had to do something about that gross, gravy-stained clip-on number.

   The next-door neighbor’s cat coughed up a hairball one day and the hair was not the cat’s. “That’s so gross!”

5. 5

   Lacking refinement in behaviour or manner; offending a standard of morality.

   Pog. Forsooth my Maister said that hee loved her almost as well as hee loved parmasent, and swore […] that shee wanted such a Nose as his was, to be as pretty a young woeman, as was any in Parma. Do. Oh grose!

   Verjuice. She certainly has Talents. / Lady Sneerwell. But her manner is gross.

   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.

   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.

6. 6

   Lacking refinement; not of high quality.

   The flowers of Rubens are gross and rude […]

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

7. 7

   Dense, heavy.

   ⁠Thy spirit ere our fatal loss / ⁠Did ever rise from high to higher; / ⁠As mounts the heavenward altar-fire, / As flies the lighter thro’ the gross.

8. 8

   Heavy in proportion to one's height; having a lot of excess flesh.

   Kitty noticed that her sister’s pregnancy had blunted her features and in her black dress she looked gross and blousy.

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

9. 9

   Difficult or impossible to see through.

   Couragious Lancaster, imbrace thy king, / And as grosse vapours perish by the sunne, / Euen so let hatred with thy soueraigne smile,

   For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.

   A pestilent and most corrosive steam, / Like a gross fog Boeotian, rising fast, / And fast condensed upon the dewy sash, / Asks egress;

   [A] larger life / Upon his own impinging, with swift glimpse / Of spacious circles luminous with mind, / To which the ethereal substance of his own / Seems but gross cloud to make that visible, / Touched to a sudden glory round the edge.

10. 10

    archaicNot sensitive in perception or feeling.

    For he is groſſe and like the maſſie earth, / That mooues not vpwards, nor by princely deeds / Doth meane to ſoare aboue the highest ſort.

    For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.

    A thousand liveried Angels lacky her [the chaste soul], / Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt, / And in cleer dream, and solemn vision / Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear.

11. 11

    obsoleteEasy to perceive.

    […] though the truth of it stands off as gross / As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it.

noun

1. 1

   Twelve dozen = 144.

   We need to order three gross of torx screws for next week.

2. 2

   The total amount (of goods, money, etc) before taxes, expenses, exceptions, tares, or similar deductions are subtracted.

3. 3

   The bulk; the mass.

verb

1. 1

   To earn money, not including expenses.

   The movie grossed three million on the first weekend.

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

Forms

plural

grosses

comparative

grosser, more gross

superlative

grossest, most gross

past tense

grossed

past participle

grossed

present participle

grossing

third person singular

grosses