All 22 Uses

grave
in
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
(Auto-generated)

The girl-mother replied in a grave affirmative.
Chpt 2 *

grave = serious and solemn
The children by the fire looked gravely at her, and one murmured— "Why, Tess, the gentleman a-horseback!"†
Chpt 6

gravely = in a serious and solemn manner

Click For
Best Example Sentences
From Other Sources
Grouped by 2 Meanings

Uses with a meaning too common or too rare to warrant foucs:

He worked harder the next day in digging a grave for Prince in the garden than he had worked for months to grow a crop for his family.†
Chpt 1
Abraham and 'Liza-Lu sobbed, Hope and Modesty discharged their griefs in loud blares which echoed from the walls; and when Prince was tumbled in they gathered round the grave.†
Chpt 1
Meanwhile Tess was walking thoughtfully among the gooseberry-bushes in the garden, and over Prince's grave.†
Chpt 1
She thought, without exactly wording the thought, how strange and god-like was a composer's power, who from the grave could lead through sequences of emotion, which he alone had felt at first, a girl like her who had never heard of his name, and never would have a clue to his personality.†
Chpt 2
In spite of the untoward surroundings, however, Tess bravely made a little cross of two laths and a piece of string, and having bound it with flowers, she stuck it up at the head of the grave one evening when she could enter the churchyard without being seen, putting at the foot also a bunch of the same flowers in a little jar of water to keep them alive.†
Chpt 2
Her face had latterly changed with changing states of mind, continually fluctuating between beauty and ordinariness, according as the thoughts were gay or grave.†
Chpt 3
She was angry with herself afterwards, thinking that he, unaware of her grave reasons for liking this seclusion, might have mistaken her meaning.†
Chpt 3
But the grave question was, ought she to do this?†
Chpt 3
After this disclosure Tess nourished no further foolish thought that there lurked any grave and deliberate import in Clare's attentions to her.†
Chpt 3
And I continue to pray for him, though on this side of the grave we shall probably never meet again.†
Chpt 4 *
"O no—no!" replied she with grave hopelessness, as one who had heard anew the turmoil of her own past in the allusion to Alec d'Urberville.†
Chpt 4
"No," she said, becoming grave: "I have so many things to think of first."†
Chpt 4
But she was grave, very grave, all the way home; till she thought, "We shall go away, a very long distance, hundreds of miles from these parts, and such as this can never happen again, and no ghost of the past reach there."†
Chpt 4
But she was grave, very grave, all the way home; till she thought, "We shall go away, a very long distance, hundreds of miles from these parts, and such as this can never happen again, and no ghost of the past reach there."†
Chpt 4
While slowly breasting this ascent Tess became conscious of footsteps behind her, and turning she saw approaching that well-known form—so strangely accoutred as the Methodist—the one personage in all the world she wished not to encounter alone on this side of the grave.†
Chpt 6
Opposite its front was a long mound or "grave", in which the roots had been preserved since early winter.†
Chpt 6
He would see mothers from English farms trudging along with their infants in their arms, when the child would be stricken with fever and would die; the mother would pause to dig a hole in the loose earth with her bare hands, would bury the babe therein with the same natural grave-tools, shed one tear, and again trudge on.†
Chpt 6
"Yes, I have been traipsing about all day, Tess," said Lu, with unemotional gravity, "a-trying to find 'ee; and I'm very tired."†
Chpt 6
But she had been observed almost immediately on her return by some people of scrupulous character and great influence: they had seen her idling in the churchyard, restoring as well as she could with a little trowel a baby's obliterated grave.†
Chpt 6
Unable to realize the gravity of her conduct, she seemed at last content; and he looked at her as she lay upon his shoulder, weeping with happiness, and wondered what obscure strain in the d'Urberville blood had led to this aberration—if it were an aberration.†
Chpt 7

Definitions:

(1) (grave as in: Her manner was grave.)
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
(2) (meaning too common or too rare to warrant focus)
Better known meanings of grave and gravity:
- grave -- a place where a dead body is buried
- gravity -- in the sense of physics to refer to the force of attraction between all masses in the universe--especially the force that causes things to fall toward the earth
Less common meanings of grave:
- death -- as in "A message from beyond the grave."
- describing a color as dark
- to sculpt with a chisel
- to clean and coat the bottom of a wooden ship with pitch
- grave accent -- a punctuation mark (`) that is used in some non-English languages, and that is placed over some letters of the alphabet to tell how they are pronounced.
- grave musical direction -- in a slow and solemn manner

grave in Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Auto-generated)

grave
in
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
(Auto-generated)