D. H. Lawrence
Did you know?
An angry grizzly bear could certainly inspire fear, so grizzly and grisly must be related, right? Grizzly comes from the Middle English adjective grisel, meaning "gray." Like its close relative grizzled, grizzly means "sprinkled or streaked with gray." In other words, the grizzly bear got its name because the hairs of its brownish to buff coat usually have silver or pale tips, creating a grizzled effect, not because it causes terror. Grisly is related to Old English grislic, which comes from a verb meaning "to fear" and which gives grisly its "terrifying" sense.
Examples of grisly in a Sentence
Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times, 29 May 2025
There was that dangerous and engrossing luxury hotel chain, a rebellious underground faction, the ultimate high-stress hospital and, just this weekend, the harrowing second chapter in a post-apocalyptic fungal zombie tale came to a grisly conclusion.
—Dan Heching, CNN Money, 27 May 2025
Lapid trades in indelicate satire for indelicate times — Y at one point literally and lavishly licks his wealthy benefactor’s gleaming knee-high boots — so these grisly verses at first seem a typically blunt caricature of Israeli nationalism at its most ruthless.
—Guy Lodge, Variety, 23 May 2025
Indiana State Police and Hamilton County officials announced the arrest of Thomas Anderson in the decades-old grisly killing of Tony Bledsoe, a father of three whose dismembered body was found in a Putnam County ravine in 1992.
—Jenna Sundel, MSNBC Newsweek, 21 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for grisly
Cite this Entry
“Grisly.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grisly. Accessed 5 Jun. 2025.
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