All 50 Uses of
grave
in
David Copperfield
- There is something strange to me, even now, in the reflection that he never saw me; and something stranger yet in the shadowy remembrance that I have of my first childish associations with his white grave-stone in the churchyard, and of the indefinable compassion I used to feel for it lying out alone there in the dark night, when our little parlour was warm and bright with fire and candle, and the doors of our house were — almost cruelly, it seemed to me sometimes — bolted and locked…†
Chpt 1-3
- I immediately went into an explanation how I had never seen my own father; and how my mother and I had always lived by ourselves in the happiest state imaginable, and lived so then, and always meant to live so; and how my father's grave was in the churchyard near our house, and shaded by a tree, beneath the boughs of which I had walked and heard the birds sing many a pleasant morning.†
Chpt 1-3
- She had lost her mother before her father; and where her father's grave was no one knew, except that it was somewhere in the depths of the sea.†
Chpt 1-3
- Something — I don't know what, or how — connected with the grave in the churchyard, and the raising of the dead, seemed to strike me like an unwholesome wind.†
Chpt 1-3
- 'You have a good deal of intelligence for a little fellow,' he said, with a grave smile that belonged to him, 'and you understood me very well, I see.
Chpt 4-6 *grave = serious and solemn
- 'Do you think it did Edward harm, Clara?' asked Mr. Murdstone, gravely.†
Chpt 4-6
- He walked me up to my room slowly and gravely — I am certain he had a delight in that formal parade of executing justice — and when we got there, suddenly twisted my head under his arm.†
Chpt 4-6
- As he repudiated this suggestion, however, with a jerk of his head, and once more confirmed his previous request by saying, with profound gravity, 'Barkis is willin'.†
Chpt 4-6
- 'No, Copperfield,' says he, gravely, 'that's not a dog.†
Chpt 4-6
- He is better able to judge of it than I am; for I very well know that I am a weak, light, girlish creature, and that he is a firm, grave, serious man.
Chpt 7-9grave = serious and solemn
- 'I think, Clara,' said Mr. Murdstone, in a low grave voice, 'that there may be better and more dispassionate judges of such a question than you.'
Chpt 7-9
- I thought of my father's grave in the churchyard, by our house, and of my mother lying there beneath the tree I knew so well.†
Chpt 7-9
- As Peggotty was wont to tell me, long ago, the followers of my father to the same grave were made ready in the same room.†
Chpt 7-9
- We stand around the grave.†
Chpt 7-9
- The mother who lay in the grave, was the mother of my infancy; the little creature in her arms, was myself, as I had once been, hushed for ever on her bosom.†
Chpt 7-9
- 'There's a friend!' murmured Mr. Peggotty, with a grave toss of his head.†
Chpt 10-12
- He then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk.†
Chpt 10-12
- See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points upwards from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty!†
Chpt 10-12
- After which, he was grave for a minute or so.†
Chpt 10-12
- 'Yes,' said my aunt, with a grave look, and her forefinger held up.
Chpt 13-15grave = serious and solemn
- 'Now, Mr. Dick,' said my aunt, with her grave look, and her forefinger up as before, 'I am going to ask you another question.†
Chpt 13-15
- Though she was just as sharp that day as on the day before, and was in and out about the donkeys just as often, and was thrown into a tremendous state of indignation, when a young man, going by, ogled Janet at a window (which was one of the gravest misdemeanours that could be committed against my aunt's dignity), she seemed to me to command more of my respect, if not less of my fear.†
Chpt 13-15
- Mr. Dick took his finger out of his mouth, on this hint, and stood among the group, with a grave and attentive expression of face.
Chpt 13-15grave = serious and solemn
- And I have felt — we both have felt, I may say; my sister being fully in my confidence — that it is right you should receive this grave and dispassionate assurance from our lips.'†
Chpt 13-15
- But I know that when I saw her turn round, in the grave light of the old staircase, and wait for us, above, I thought of that window; and I associated something of its tranquil brightness with Agnes Wickfield ever afterwards.†
Chpt 13-15
- I went, accompanied by Mr. Wickfield, to the scene of my future studies — a grave building in a courtyard, with a learned air about it that seemed very well suited to the stray rooks and jackdaws who came down from the Cathedral towers to walk with a clerkly bearing on the grass-plot — and was introduced to my new master, Doctor Strong.
Chpt 16-18grave = serious and solemn
- Repeating 'no', and 'not the least', and other short assurances to the same purport, Doctor Strong jogged on before us, at a queer, uneven pace; and we followed: Mr. Wickfield, looking grave, I observed, and shaking his head to himself, without knowing that I saw him.†
Chpt 16-18
- As I went up to my airy old room, the grave shadow of the staircase seemed to fall upon my doubts and fears, and to make the past more indistinct.†
Chpt 16-18
- Mr. Wickfield interposed, gravely.†
Chpt 16-18
- 'Compensation to the lady, sir?' asked Mr. Wickfield gravely.†
Chpt 16-18
- It was very gravely and decorously ordered, and on a sound system; with an appeal, in everything, to the honour and good faith of the boys, and an avowed intention to rely on their possession of those qualities unless they proved themselves unworthy of it, which worked wonders.†
Chpt 16-18
- I thought afresh of the grave in the churchyard, underneath the tree: and it seemed as if the house were dead too, now, and all connected with my father and mother were faded away.†
Chpt 16-18
- 'To be sure he has,' retorted Mr. Dick, nodding his head gravely.†
Chpt 16-18
- As I think of them going up and down before those schoolroom windows — the Doctor reading with his complacent smile, an occasional flourish of the manuscript, or grave motion of his head; and Mr. Dick listening, enchained by interest, with his poor wits calmly wandering God knows where, upon the wings of hard words — I think of it as one of the pleasantest things, in a quiet way, that I have ever seen.†
Chpt 16-18
- MY aunt and I had held many grave deliberations on the calling to which I should be devoted.†
Chpt 19-21
- 'And I said' added Mr. Wickfield gravely, 'abroad.†
Chpt 19-21
- I had no pleasure in thinking, any more, of the grave old broad-leaved aloe-trees, which remained shut up in themselves a hundred years together, and of the trim smooth grass-plot, and the stone urns, and the Doctor's walk, and the congenial sound of the Cathedral bell hovering above them all.†
Chpt 19-21
- 'It is education for a very grave profession, if you mean that, Rosa,' Mrs. Steerforth answered with some coldness.†
Chpt 19-21
- 'She has borne the mark ever since, as you see,' said Steerforth; 'and she'll bear it to her grave, if she ever rests in one — though I can hardly believe she will ever rest anywhere.†
Chpt 19-21
- Mr. Barkis, we had some grave talks about that matter, hadn't we?'†
Chpt 19-21
- The grave beneath the tree, where both my parents lay — on which I had looked out, when it was my father's only, with such curious feelings of compassion, and by which I had stood, so desolate, when it was opened to receive my pretty mother and her baby — the grave which Peggotty's own faithful care had ever since kept neat, and made a garden of, I walked near, by the hour.†
Chpt 22-24
- The grave beneath the tree, where both my parents lay — on which I had looked out, when it was my father's only, with such curious feelings of compassion, and by which I had stood, so desolate, when it was opened to receive my pretty mother and her baby — the grave which Peggotty's own faithful care had ever since kept neat, and made a garden of, I walked near, by the hour.†
Chpt 22-24
- 'Well, Mas'r Davy, in a general way, so 't would be,' he returned; 'but look'ee here, Mas'r Davy,' lowering his voice, and speaking very gravely.†
Chpt 22-24
- I made allowance for Steerforth's light way of treating the subject, and, considering it with reference to the staid air of gravity and antiquity which I associated with that 'lazy old nook near St. Paul's Churchyard', did not feel indisposed towards my aunt's suggestion; which she left to my free decision, making no scruple of telling me that it had occurred to her, on her lately visiting her own proctor in Doctors' Commons for the purpose of settling her will in my favour.†
Chpt 22-24
- Mr. Spenlow conducted me through a paved courtyard formed of grave brick houses, which I inferred, from the Doctors' names upon the doors, to be the official abiding-places of the learned advocates of whom Steerforth had told me; and into a large dull room, not unlike a chapel to my thinking, on the left hand.†
Chpt 22-24
- Conversing with her, and hearing her sing, was such a delightful reminder to me of my happy life in the grave old house she had made so beautiful, that I could have remained there half the night; but, having no excuse for staying any longer, when the lights of Mr. Waterbrook's society were all snuffed out, I took my leave very much against my inclination.†
Chpt 25-27
- Meanwhile he took the mutton off the gridiron, and gravely handed it round.†
Chpt 28-30
- I returned to my fireside, and was musing, half gravely and half laughing, on the character of Mr. Micawber and the old relations between us, when I heard a quick step ascending the stairs.†
Chpt 28-30
- She had long ago bought, out of her own savings, a little piece of ground in our old churchyard near the grave of 'her sweet girl', as she always called my mother; and there they were to rest.†
Chpt 31-33
- We walked about the churchyard for an hour, after all was over; and pulled some young leaves from the tree above my mother's grave.†
Chpt 31-33
Definition:
-
(grave as in: Her manner was grave.) serious and/or solemnThe exact meaning of this sense of grave can depend upon its context. For example:
- "This is a grave problem," or "a situation of the utmost gravity." -- important, dangerous, or causing worry
- "She was in a grave mood upon returning from the funeral." -- sad or solemn
- "She looked me in the eye and gravely promised." -- in a sincere and serious manner