grave

adj

Etymology: From Middle French grave, a learned borrowing from Latin gravis (“heavy, important”). Compare Old French greve (“terrible, dreadful”). Doublet of grief.

1. Characterised by a dignified sense of seriousness; not cheerful.

   “[Mercuti] Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.”

2. Low in pitch, tone etc.

   “The thicker the cord or string, the more grave is the note or tone.”

3. Serious, in a negative sense; important, formidable.

   “Israel’s behaviour is doing grave damage to the Palestinian people and to any hope for peace.”

   “Khrushchev made a grave miscalculation when he failed to appreciate the growing opposition to his power and overestimated the support of his bureaucracy.”

4. Dull, produced in the middle or back of the mouth. (See Grave and acute on Wikipedia.Wikipedia )
5. Influential, important; authoritative.

   “An illiterate fool sits in a mans seat; and the common people hold him learned, grave, and wise.”

name

Etymology: * As an English surname, from Middle English greyve (“steward”). * Also as an English surname, variant of Grove. * As a French surname, from the noun gravier (“gravel”). * As a north German surname, variant of Graf; also from the Low German noun Graf (“ditch, grave”) (see grave).

1. A surname.

noun

1. A kilogram.

   “At the origin of the metric system the new unit of weight was called the grave, and was equivalent to the kilogram. The denomination grave would in some respects have been preferable to kilogram.”

verb

1. To clean, as a vessel's bottom, of barnacles, grass, etc., and pay it over with pitch — so called because graves or greaves were formerly used for this purpose.