MEANING
1. To feel or express deep sorrow, especially after a death or a major personal loss.
2. To cause someone deep sorrow or distress through an event, loss, or separation.
Use it for
Name deep sorrow or a loss that causes it.A direct but flexible verb for mourning that can focus on either the person or the loss.
Words that belong together
- grieve for someone
- grieve deeply
- grieve over a loss
- grieve someone
- it grieves someone
On the page
She grieved for the brother she had not seen since childhood.
It grieved him to leave the orchard his mother had planted.
Nearby words
Opposite meanings
Word forms
- Base
- grieve
- Past tense
- grieved
- Past participle
- grieved
- Present participle
- grieving
Full tense & aspect guide
- Present
- grieve
- Present continuous
- am/is/are grieving
- Present perfect
- have/has grieved
- Present perfect continuous
- have/has been grieving
- Past
- grieved
- Past continuous
- was/were grieving
- Past perfect
- had grieved
- Past perfect continuous
- had been grieving
- Future
- will grieve
- Future continuous
- will be grieving
- Future perfect
- will have grieved
- Future perfect continuous
- will have been grieving
Choose the auxiliary that agrees with your subject. These are constructions of one word, not separate entries.
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Usage notes
Often refers to mourning a person or loss, but can also describe profound sorrow about a change or injustice. Sense 2: The transitive sense means causing sorrow; the more common intransitive construction is “grieve for/over” a loss.
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