gross

groʊs

WordNet

Dress for the beach (beach dress) from 'grosse toile rugueuse' in blue and white. Body with red star. Skirt with large fabric buttons. Swimsuit in white 'gros jersey' with a thin red belt. Beach pajamas in white and navy blue flannel, combined with a blouse in navy blue and white 'laine tricotée' (wool). Print from the fashion magazine Très Parisien (1920-1936).

(adj) gross
conspicuously and outrageously bad or reprehensible "a crying shame","an egregious lie","flagrant violation of human rights","a glaring error","gross ineptitude","gross injustice","rank treachery"
(adj) gross
conspicuously and tastelessly indecent "coarse language","a crude joke","crude behavior","an earthy sense of humor","a revoltingly gross expletive","a vulgar gesture","full of language so vulgar it should have been edited"
(adj) gross
repellently fat "a bald porcine old man"
(adj) gross
lacking fine distinctions or detail "the gross details of the structure appear reasonable"
(adj) gross
without qualification; used informally as (often pejorative) intensifiers "an arrant fool","a complete coward","a consummate fool","a double-dyed villain","gross negligence","a perfect idiot","pure folly","what a sodding mess","stark staring mad","a thoroughgoing villain","utter nonsense","the unadulterated truth"
(adj) gross
before any deductions "gross income"
(adj) gross
visible to the naked eye (especially of rocks and anatomical features)
(v) gross
earn before taxes, expenses, etc.
(n) gross
the entire amount of income before any deductions are made
(n) gross
twelve dozen

Illustrations

View of the Grosse Johannisstrasse in Hamburg with a parade of booksellers. In front is a man with a banner consisting of a hand that scatters books from the air over the earth. Numbered top right: Bl. 11.

Three-quarter silk cloak 'à grosse impression and relief' in the same shades, trimmed with ermine fur. Fabrics from Schulz et Cie. Accessories: cloche (pot hat), pumps. Print from the fashion magazine Très Parisien (1920-1936).

Three Wehrmacht soldiers in a light-colored uniform. On the back it says: August 1937, Gross-Hamburg ?. Photo belonging to album 'Kriegserinnerungen'.

View of the Gross Fiescherhorn

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary

Interesting fact

The 1988 move "Big" which was directed by Penny Marshall was the first movie by a female director to gross over $100 million domestically

Gross
Coarse; rough; not fine or delicate.
Gross
Disgusting; repulsive; highly offensive; as, a gross remark.
Gross
Expressing, or originating in, animal or sensual appetites; hence, coarse, vulgar, low, obscene, or impure. "The terms which are delicate in one age become gross in the next."
Gross
Great; large; bulky; fat; of huge size; excessively large. "A gross fat man.", "A gross body of horse under the Duke."
Gross
Not easily aroused or excited; not sensitive in perception or feeling; dull; witless. "Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear."
Gross
The main body; the chief part, bulk, or mass. "For the gross of the people, they are considered as a mere herd of cattle."
Gross
Thick; dense; not attenuated; as, a gross medium.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

Interesting fact

The original meaning of the word grocer was referring to a person who traded food in wholesale. These people would usually sell in large quantities, or by the "gross."

gross
Great; large; big; bulky.
gross
Unusually large or plump, as from coarse growth or fatness: applied to plants or animals, and implying in men excessive or repulsive fatness.
gross
Coarse in texture or form; coarse in taste, or as related to any of the senses; not fine or delicate.
gross
Coarse in a moral sense; vulgar; indelicate; broad: applied to either persons or things.
gross
Remarkably glaring or reprehensible; enormous; shameful; flagrant: as, a gross mistake; gross injustice.
gross
Thick; dense; not attenuated; not refined or pure: as, a gross medium; gross air; gross elements.
gross
Not acute or sensitive in perception, apprehension, or feeling; stupid; dull.
gross
Whole; entire; total; specifically, without deduction, as for charges or waste material; without allowance of tare and tret: opposed to net: as, the gross sum or amount; gross profits, income, or weight.
gross
General; not entering into detail.
(n) gross
The main body; the chief part; the bulk; the mass: now chiefly or only in the phrase in gross or in the gross (which see, below).
(n) gross
A unit of tale, consisting of twelve dozen, or 144. It never has the plural form: as, five gross or ten gross.
(n) gross
Thick soft food, such as porridge, etc. Halliwell.
gross
After large game: as, to fly gross: said of a hawk.
gross
To engross.
gross
Relatively large; specifically, visible to the naked eye; megascopic; not microscopic.

Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary

Interesting fact

Harrison Ford is the only actor whose ten highest grossing movies have each earned at least $200 million.

(adj) Gross
grōs coarse: rough: dense: palpable, glaring, shameful: whole: coarse in mind: stupid: sensual: obscene
(n) Gross
the main bulk: the whole taken together: a great hundred—i.e. twelve dozen

Quotations

The embarrassing thing is that the salad dressing is out-grossing my films.

Paul Newman

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.

George Bernard Shaw

My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income.

Errol Flynn

Pure innovation is more gross than error.

George Chapman

Love is an alliance of friendship and animalism; if the former predominates it is passion exalted and refined; if the latter, gross and sensual.

Charles Caleb Colton

So our Lord God commonly gave riches to those gross asses to whom he vouchsafed nothing else.

Martin Luther

Etymology

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary F. gros, L. grossus, perh. fr. L. crassus, thick, dense, fat, E. crass, cf. Skr. grathita, tied together, wound up, hardened. Cf. Engross Grocer Grogram

Usage in the news

Intel Lowers Gross Profit Margin Outlook Mar 5, 2008 Printable format Email this Article Search. appliancemagazine.com

The 4 percent tax will apply to the gross receipts on the retail sale of intrastate and interstate telecommunications services if the customer's place of primary use is located in South Dakota. plaintalk.net

Gross Revenue Rises at Keeneland. bloodhorse.com

How can a huge hit film like "Forrest Gump ," the third-highest-grossing movie of all time, not yet show a profit. nytimes.com

The Detroit News reports the pilot was trying to land the single-engine plane Thursday at Grosse Ile Municipal Airport at the island suburb of Grosse Ile. monroenews.com

Windom native Brett Gross to be inducted into Gustavus Hall of Fame. kwoa.com

Sills Cummis & Gross Merges With Silverberg Stonehill Goldsmith & Haber . metrocorpcounsel.com

Peter and Bobby Farrelly are gross-out artists in transition. csmonitor.com

Jeff Gross/Getty ImagesFarnce's Bertrand Gille (6) shoots and scores past Sweden's Tobias Karlsson (18). espn.go.com

So Pastor Craig Gross is leading the crusade against America's addiction to porno. banana1015.com

It would be some advantage to live a primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outward civilization, if only to learn what are the gross necessities of life and what methods have been made to obtain them. usatoday.com

I read Larry Gross' "Stones in the Road" column (issue of Jan 28) and could relate to it. citybeat.com

The scary thriller Paranormal took home the gold over the weekend, topping the box office with $30.2 million in gross ticket sales. blackenterprise.com

Panos Cosmatos' chilly debut is creepy and gross, but it's also a memorably stylish viewing experience. metropulse.com

Thyroxine (T4) replacement was ineffective during periods of gross proteinuria in another. thelancet.com

Usage in scientific papers

This model is known as the Br´ezin-Gross-Witten model [223] and is deﬁned by Z (J, J † ) = ZU ∈U(N ) where the integral is over the Haar measure of U(N ) and J is an arbitrary complex source term.
Random Matrix Theory and Chiral Symmetry in QCD

For J a multiple of the identity (with the interpretation of J ∼ 1/g2 , where g is the Yang-Mills coupling constant), this model was solved analytically in the large-N limit by Gross and Witten.
Random Matrix Theory and Chiral Symmetry in QCD

We have used the new pair of parameters simply as another example to illustrate the gross effect of the subdominant factors of the survival probability Γt (r) on the theoretical prediction of SN (t).
I. Territory covered by N random walkers on deterministic fractals. The Sierpinski gasket

The ﬁnancial support by SFB 237 ”Unordnung und grosse Fluktuationen” as well as of the grant No.
Spectra of Random Contractions and Scattering Theory for Discrete-Time Systems

Harald Grosse, Thomas Kra jewski, Raimar Wulkenhaar, “Renormalization of noncommutative Yang-Mills theories: A simple example”, hep-th/0001182.
Renormalization of noncommutative U(N) gauge theories

Usage in literature

TOWER DE LA GROSSE-HORLOGE. "Rouen, It's History and Monuments" by Théodore Licquet

These gross manners are the result of two factors in German life that it is well to keep in mind. "Germany and the Germans" by Price Collier

To watch his activities was to marvel that he still retained the grossness of figure he so deplored. "The Triumph of John Kars" by Ridgwell Cullum

But what were the particulars that made up the gross sum of all this? "The Covenants And The Covenanters" by Various

They expressed their surprise at the grossness of the imposition. "The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. From William and Mary to George II." by Tobias Smollett

His concern, one may say, is with the gross anatomy of passion, not with its histology. "A Book of Prefaces" by H. L. Mencken

According to Strauss the idea is the very soul of all that is valuable in the past; and history is the gross crust which envelops it. "History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology" by John F. Hurst

For instance, the gross amount of ash in Lucern is given as 1,201.6 lbs. "Talks on Manures" by Joseph Harris

It would be a gross error to infer the general character of Cooper's travels from these extracts. "James Fenimore Cooper" by Thomas R. Lounsbury

The old Manchester economists are generally attacked for being too gross and material. "George Bernard Shaw" by Gilbert K. Chesterton

Usage in poetry

And of you the sign now, surely, of a gross
perpetuity
(which is not reluctant, or if it is,
it is no longer important.

"A Song" by Robert Creeley

His death, they said, was slow, grotesque and hard,
Yet in that gross decay, until the end
Untroubled in his joy, he saw the Word
Made spirit and ascend.

"Ode On The Death Of Pius The Twelfth" by A D Hope

Fallen from thence to this,
From all immortal sunk to mortal sweet,
To slow gross joys from joy so fleet,
Fallen to mere remembrance of unsustainable bliss....

"The Fall" by John Freeman

O Alison Gross, that lives in yon tow'r,
The ugliest witch in the north countrie,
She trysted me ae day up till her bow'r,
And mony fair speeches she made to me.

"Alison Gross" by Andrew Lang

"Didst ever know, my friend, what I endure,
In slavish, plodding work, from day to day,
Which work should be in its own nature pure,
And lifted high, from gross and heavy clay.

"The Teacher" by Thomas Frederick Young

No! is my answer from this cold bleak ridge
Down to your valley: you may rest you there:
The gulf is wide, and none can build a bridge
That your gross weight would safely hither bear.

"A Loyal Woman's No" by Lucy Larcom