grame meaning (obsolete): definition, etymology and quotations

grame

noun

Etymology From Middle English grame, gram, grome, from Old English grama (“rage, anger, trouble, devil, demon”), from Proto-Germanic *gramô (“anger”), *gramaz (“fiend, enemy”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrem- (“to rub, grind, scrape”). Cognate with Middle Dutch gram (“angry”), Dutch gram (“wrath”), Middle Low German gram (“anger”), German Gram (“grief, sorrow”), Old Danish gram (“devil”), Icelandic gramir, gröm (“fiends, demons”). Related to gram (“angry”, adjective), grim.

Obsolete Anger; wrath; scorn; bitterness; repugnance.

Obsolete Sorrow; grief; misery.

to save the from the Blame of all my greffe & gramea. 1542, Thomas Wyatt, “And wylt thow leve me thus” in the Devonshire Manuscript, folio 17 recto, lines 3 and 4
Age doth me mvche grame.1548, Smyth & Dame, section 218:

1 more example

God's strength shall be my trust, / Fall it to good or grame / 'Tis in his name.1872, Rossetti, Staff & Scrip, Poems (ed. 6), 49

grame

verb

Etymology From Middle English gramen, gramien, from Old English gramian, gremian (“to anger, enrage”), from Proto-Germanic *gramjaną (“to grill, vex, irritate, grieve”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrem- (“to rub, grind, scrape”). Cognate with German grämen (“to grieve”), Danish græmme (“to grieve”), Swedish gräma (“to grieve, mortify, vex”).

Obsolete To vex; grill; make angry or sorry.

Men may leave all games, / That sailën to St James; / For many a man it grames / When they begin to sail. For when they have take the sea, / At Sandwich, or at Winchelsea, / At Bristol, or where that it may be, / Their hearts begin to fail.1888, Henry Macaulay Fitzgibbon, Early English and Scottish Poetry, 1250-1600, page 235:

Obsolete To grieve; to be sorry; to fret; to be vexed or displeased.

The crane and the curlewe thereat gan to grame.1526, John Skelton, Magnyfycence, published 1864:

Related terms: gram

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.