All 11 Uses of
grave
in
Obasan
- Obasan moves her head slowly and gravely in a nod as she listens.
Chpt 15 *gravely = in a serious and solemn manner
- He turns to the woman in blue and nods gravely, says a few words to the ojisan and to a missionary, then disappears into the crowd.†
Chpt 16
- …Committee on Japanese Canadians to the House and the Senate of Canada, April 1946 It is urgently submitted that the Orders-in-Council [for the deportation of Canadians of Japanese racial origin] are wrong and indefensible and constitute a grave threat to the rights and liberties of Canadian citizens, and that Parliament as guardian of these rights and the representative of the people, should assert its powers and require the Governor-in-Council to withdraw the Orders, for the following…
Chpt 39grave = serious and solemn
- The Congress of the United States has no power to exile citizens, and the British Parliament has not, even in the gravest emergency, found it necessary to assume such a power.†
Chpt 39gravest = most important or most serious
- She holds the basket in the palm of her hand and raises it above her head with mock gravity.†
Chpt 19
- There are half a dozen unknown men and a white clergyman standing beside a freshly covered grave.†
Chpt 32
- It wasn't at all a "fine and private place," that home beyond the grave.†
Chpt 35
- All this questioning, this clawing at her grave, is an unseemly thing.†
Chpt 35
- In all my high school days, until we heard from Sensei that her grave had been found in Tokyo, I pictured her trapped in Japan by government regulations, or by an ailing grandmother.†
Chpt 37
- I can hear Aunt Emily telling us about Mother's grave.†
Chpt 37
- The Orders cannot be enforced without grave injustice and inhumanity to innocent persons.†
Chpt 39
Definitions:
-
(1)
(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
-
(2)
(meaning too common or rare to warrant focus) Better known meanings of grave and gravity:Less common meanings of grave:
- 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
- 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