17 uses
(click/touch triangles for details)
1 —5 uses as in:
Her manner was grave.
Definition
serious and/or solemn
The 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
- It was a slender young man, not more than one or two and twenty years old, with rather a grave and thoughtful expression for his years, but likewise a springy alacrity and vigor.Chapter 3 — The First Customer (8% in)
- Oftener, though, you used to be sitting at the threshold, and looking gravely into the street; for you had always a grave kind of way with you,—a grown-up air, when you were only the height of my knee.Chapter 4 — A Day Behind the Counter (49% in)
- Oftener, though, you used to be sitting at the threshold, and looking gravely into the street; for you had always a grave kind of way with you,—a grown-up air, when you were only the height of my knee.Chapter 4 — A Day Behind the Counter (49% in)
- "I should be very sorry to think so," answered Phoebe gravely.Chapter 14 — Phoebe's Good-Bye (48% in)
- These being hastily gobbled up, the chicken spread its wings, and alighted close by Phoebe on the window-sill, where it looked gravely into her face and vented its emotions in a croak.Chapter 14 — Phoebe's Good-Bye (78% in)
There are no more uses of "grave" flagged with this meaning in The House of the Seven Gables.
Typical Usage
(best examples)
? —12 uses
exact meaning not specified
- Shall you be hungry,—shall you lack clothes, or a roof to shelter you,—between this point and the grave?Chapter 15 — The Scowl and Smile (87% in)
- Without absolutely expressing a doubt whether the stalwart Puritan had acted as a man of conscience and integrity throughout the proceedings which have been sketched, they, nevertheless, hinted that he was about to build his house over an unquiet grave.Chapter 1 — The Old Pyncheon Family (16% in)
- She wished them all well, but wished, too, that she herself were done with them, and in her quiet grave.Chapter 3 — The First Customer (7% in)
- Without appearing to differ, in any tangible way, from other people's clothes, there was yet a wide and rich gravity about them that must have been a characteristic of the wearer, since it could not be defined as pertaining either to the cut or material.Chapter 4 — A Day Behind the Counter (3% in)
- His character perplexed the little country-girl, as it might a more practised observer; for, while the tone of his conversation had generally been playful, the impression left on her mind was that of gravity, and, except as his youth modified it, almost sternness.Chapter 6 — Maule's Well (74% in)
- Old Matthew Maule, especially, was known to have as little hesitation or difficulty in rising out of his grave as an ordinary man in getting out of bed, and was as often seen at midnight as living people at noonday.Chapter 13 — Alice Pyncheon (8% in)
- A very aged woman, recently dead, had often used the metaphorical expression, in her fireside talk, that miles and miles of the Pyncheon lands had been shovelled into Maule's grave; which, by the bye, was but a very shallow nook, between two rocks, near the summit of Gallows Hill.Chapter 13 — Alice Pyncheon (40% in)
- So much weight had the shrewd lawyers assigned to these fables, that (but Mr. Pyncheon did not see fit to inform the carpenter of the fact) they had secretly caused the wizard's grave to be searched.Chapter 13 — Alice Pyncheon (41% in)
- Were I to do so, my grandfather would not rest quiet in his grave!Chapter 13 — Alice Pyncheon (48% in)
- One was an aged, dignified, stern-looking gentleman, clad as for a solemn festival in grave and costly attire, but with a great blood-stain on his richly wrought band; the second, an aged man, meanly dressed, with a dark and malign countenance, and a broken halter about his neck; the third, a person not so advanced in life as the former two, but beyond the middle age, wearing a coarse woollen tunic and leather breeches, and with a carpenter's rule sticking out of his side pocket.Chapter 13 — Alice Pyncheon (85% in)
- Thus far the Judge's countenance had expressed mild forbearance,—grave and almost gentle deprecation of his cousin's unbecoming violence,—free and Christian-like forgiveness of the wrong inflicted by her words.Chapter 15 — The Scowl and Smile (58% in)
- We behold aged men and grandames, a clergyman with the Puritanic stiffness still in his garb and mien, and a red-coated officer of the old French war; and there comes the shop-keeping Pyncheon of a century ago, with the ruffles turned back from his wrists; and there the periwigged and brocaded gentleman of the artist's legend, with the beautiful and pensive Alice, who brings no pride out of her virgin grave.Chapter 18 — Governor Pyncheon (76% in)
There are no more uses of "grave" in The House of the Seven Gables.
Typical Usage
(best examples)