GRAVE in DAVID COPPERFIELD - verbalworkout.com

86 uses

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1 —31 uses as in:
Her manner was grave.

Definition

serious and/or solemn

The exact meaning of this sense of grave is often subject to 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 (with a heavy heart)
"She looked me in the eye and gravely promised." — sincere and dignified without humor

'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.
Chapters 4-6 (6% in)

'Do you think it did Edward harm, Clara?' asked Mr. Murdstone, gravely.
Chapters 4-6 (30% in)
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.
Chapters 4-6 (32% in)
'No, Copperfield,' says he, gravely, 'that's not a dog.
Chapters 4-6 (78% in)
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.
Chapters 7-9 (58% in)
'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.'
Chapters 7-9 (68% in)
He then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk.
Chapters 10-12 (39% in)
'Yes,' said my aunt, with a grave look, and her forefinger held up.
Chapters 13-15 (30% in)
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.
Chapters 13-15 (59% in)
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.
Chapters 13-15 (65% in)
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.
Chapters 16-18 (0% in)
Mr. Wickfield interposed, gravely.
Chapters 16-18 (11% in)
'Compensation to the lady, sir?' asked Mr. Wickfield gravely.
Chapters 16-18 (13% in)
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.
Chapters 16-18 (24% in)
'To be sure he has,' retorted Mr. Dick, nodding his head gravely.
Chapters 16-18 (53% in)
'And I said' added Mr. Wickfield gravely, 'abroad.
Chapters 19-21 (15% in)
'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.
Chapters 22-24 (40% in)
Meanwhile he took the mutton off the gridiron, and gravely handed it round.
Chapters 28-30 (15% in)
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.
Chapters 28-30 (41% in)
'Ah, Trot!' said my aunt, shaking her head, and smiling gravely; 'blind, blind, blind!'
Chapters 34-36 (28% in)
Miss Clarissa looked at Miss Lavinia, and shook her head gravely.
Chapters 40-42 (39% in)
Of our kneeling down together, side by side; of Dora's trembling less and less, but always clasping Agnes by the hand; of the service being got through, quietly and gravely; of our all looking at each other in an April state of smiles and tears, when it is over; of my young wife being hysterical in the vestry, and crying for her poor papa, her dear papa.
Chapters 43-45 (17% in)
In the silence that ensued, my aunt walked gravely up to Mr. Dick, without at all hurrying herself, and gave him a hug and a sounding kiss.
Chapters 43-45 (98% in)
If I looked as gravely at him as Traddles did, he must have found our company by no means inspiriting.
Chapters 49-51 (17% in)
'Theer's one thing furder, Mas'r Davy,' said he, putting his hand in his breast-pocket, and gravely taking out the little paper bundle I had seen before, which he unrolled on the table.
Chapters 49-51 (77% in)
'I said that theer was on'y one thing furder,' he proceeded with a grave smile, when he had made up his little bundle again, and put it in his pocket; 'but theer was two.
Chapters 49-51 (78% in)
Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, gravely, 'I hope I see you well?'
Chapters 52-54 (10% in)
We proposed that the family should have their passage and their outfit, and a hundred pounds; and that Mr. Micawber's arrangement for the repayment of the advances should be gravely entered into, as it might be wholesome for him to suppose himself under that responsibility.
Chapters 52-54 (91% in)
The potential waiter waved him away, and turned, gravely, to me.
Chapters 58-60 (25% in)
I could think of the past now, gravely, but not bitterly; and could contemplate the future in a brave spirit.
Chapters 58-60 (56% in)
'A prosperous one?' said I. 'Trot,' returned my aunt gravely, 'I can't say.
Chapters 58-60 (79% in)

There are no more uses of "grave" flagged with this meaning in David Copperfield.

Typical Usage (best examples)

Dictionary / pronunciation — Google^®Dictionary list — Onelook.com^®

? —55 uses
exact meaning not specified

While I was copying the plain inscription for him at his request, I saw him stoop, and gather a tuft of grass from the grave and a little earth.
Chapters 63-64 (65% in)

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.
Chapters 1-3 (79% in)
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.
Chapters 1-3 (80% in)
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.
Chapters 1-3 (98% in)
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'.
Chapters 4-6 (48% in)
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.
Chapters 7-9 (78% in)
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.
Chapters 7-9 (93% in)
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!
Chapters 10-12 (43% in)
After which, he was grave for a minute or so.
Chapters 10-12 (90% in)
'Now, Mr. Dick,' said my aunt, with her grave look, and her forefinger up as before, 'I am going to ask you another question.
Chapters 13-15 (42% in)
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.'
Chapters 13-15 (66% in)
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.
Chapters 16-18 (4% in)
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.
Chapters 16-18 (8% in)
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.
Chapters 16-18 (49% in)
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.
Chapters 16-18 (59% in)
MY aunt and I had held many grave deliberations on the calling to which I should be devoted.
Chapters 19-21 (1% in)
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.
Chapters 19-21 (21% in)
'It is education for a very grave profession, if you mean that, Rosa,' Mrs. Steerforth answered with some coldness.
Chapters 19-21 (44% in)
'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.
Chapters 19-21 (49% in)
Mr. Barkis, we had some grave talks about that matter, hadn't we?'
Chapters 19-21 (77% in)
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.
Chapters 22-24 (2% in)
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.
Chapters 22-24 (2% in)
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.
Chapters 22-24 (56% in)
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.
Chapters 22-24 (74% in)
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.
Chapters 31-33 (0% in)
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.
Chapters 31-33 (4% in)
But they were both as grave and steady as the sea itself, then lying beneath a dark sky, waveless — yet with a heavy roll upon it, as if it breathed in its rest — and touched, on the horizon, with a strip of silvery light from the unseen sun.
Chapters 31-33 (23% in)
If I could hunt her to her grave, I would.
Chapters 31-33 (58% in)
No, Mr. Murdstone, I have not worrited and frightened any sweet creetur to an early grave!'
Chapters 31-33 (69% in)
On your word, now?' said the Doctor, — which he had always made a very grave appeal to the honour of us boys.
Chapters 34-36 (70% in)
The Doctor looked grave, and said, as though he wished to change the subject, 'Then there's no news at all; and no news, they say, is good news.'
Chapters 34-36 (74% in)
Mr. Micawber resumed his seat on the close of these remarks, and drank two glasses of punch in grave succession.
Chapters 34-36 (98% in)
When she was quite herself again, and was curling Jip's ears, as he lay upon her lap, I became grave, and said: 'My own!
Chapters 37-39 (9% in)
One day, when I went to the Commons as usual, I found Mr. Spenlow in the doorway looking extremely grave, and talking to himself.
Chapters 37-39 (23% in)
Now, Mr. Copperfield, I hope that you will not render it necessary for me to open, even for a quarter of an hour, that closed page in the book of life, and unsettle, even for a quarter of an hour, grave affairs long since composed.'
Chapters 37-39 (37% in)
We were very grave; and when we came to a stray seal, or pencil-case, or ring, or any little article of that kind which we associated personally with him, we spoke very low.
Chapters 37-39 (49% in)
There was a fine, massive gravity in his face, I did not venture to disturb.
Chapters 40-42 (6% in)
Of course I did not understand then that this was an allusion to her supposed experience of the stricken Pidger; but I saw, from the gravity with which Miss Clarissa nodded her head, that great weight was attached to these words.
Chapters 40-42 (36% in)
As this change stole on Annie, once like sunshine in the Doctor's house, the Doctor became older in appearance, and more grave; but the sweetness of his temper, the placid kindness of his manner, and his benevolent solicitude for her, if they were capable of any increase, were increased.
Chapters 40-42 (93% in)
I know too well, as his grave figure passes onward, what he seeks, and what he dreads.
Chapters 43-45 (6% in)
I felt so injured by the inconsequential nature of this charge, that it gave me courage to be grave.
Chapters 43-45 (28% in)
After the delivery of this communication, which he shot out of himself as if he were loaded with it, Mr. Dick sat down with greater gravity than usual, and looked at me.
Chapters 43-45 (67% in)
'But I mean, boy,' resuming his gravity, 'what do you consider me in this respect?' touching his forehead.
Chapters 43-45 (68% in)
He became as suddenly grave again, and leaning forward as before, said — first respectfully taking out his pocket-handkerchief, as if it really did represent my aunt: 'Most wonderful woman in the world, Trotwood.
Chapters 43-45 (72% in)
I well remember the sense of dignity, beauty even, with which the patient gravity of his face impressed me, when, having gradually removed his eyes from mine, he sat looking downward, leaning his forehead on his hand.
Chapters 46-48 (28% in)
Could she have thowt o' that so many year, because it was to be her grave!'
Chapters 46-48 (29% in)
When Dora was very childish, and I would have infinitely preferred to humour her, I tried to be grave — and disconcerted her, and myself too.
Chapters 46-48 (82% in)
"Stand away from me," she says, "I am a ghost that calls her from beside her open grave!"
Chapters 49-51 (70% in)
He said, with exceeding gravity, 'Pardon me,' and proceeded, with a mixture of the lowest spirits and the most intense enjoyment, to the peroration of his letter.
Chapters 52-54 (38% in)
I went up to my bedroom to change my wet clothes; and the vast extent of that old wainscoted apartment (which was over the archway leading to the Inn, I remember), and the sedate immensity of the four-post bedstead, and the indomitable gravity of the chests of drawers, all seemed to unite in sternly frowning on the fortunes of Traddles, or on any such daring youth.
Chapters 58-60 (28% in)
I requested the new maid who admitted me, to tell Miss Wickfield that a gentleman who waited on her from a friend abroad, was there; and I was shown up the grave old staircase (cautioned of the steps I knew so well), into the unchanged drawing-room.
Chapters 58-60 (82% in)
With her own sweet tranquillity, she calmed my agitation; led me back to the time of our parting; spoke to me of Emily, whom she had visited, in secret, many times; spoke to me tenderly of Dora's grave.
Chapters 58-60 (85% in)
'To the system?' inquired Traddles, looking grave.
Chapters 61-62 (20% in)
He dropped his voice as he said these words, and the gravity I so well remembered overspread his face.
Chapters 63-64 (24% in)
I asked, when I was grave enough.
Chapters 63-64 (35% in)

There are no more uses of "grave" in David Copperfield.

Typical Usage (best examples)

Dictionary / pronunciation — Google^®Dictionary list — Onelook.com^®

grave used in David Copperfield

grave
used in David Copperfield