grievous

grievous
    adj 1: causing fear or anxiety by threatening great harm; "a
           dangerous operation"; "a grave situation"; "a grave
           illness"; "grievous bodily harm"; "a serious wound"; "a
           serious turn of events"; "a severe case of pneumonia"; "a
           life-threatening disease" [syn: {dangerous}, {grave},
           {grievous}, {serious}, {severe}, {life-threatening}]
    2: causing or marked by grief or anguish; "a grievous loss"; "a
       grievous cry"; "her sigh was heartbreaking"; "the
       heartrending words of Rabin's granddaughter" [syn:
       {grievous}, {heartbreaking}, {heartrending}]
    3: of great gravity or crucial import; requiring serious
       thought; "grave responsibilities"; "faced a grave decision in
       a time of crisis"; "a grievous fault"; "heavy matters of
       state"; "the weighty matters to be discussed at the peace
       conference" [syn: {grave}, {grievous}, {heavy}, {weighty}]
    4: shockingly brutal or cruel; "murder is an atrocious crime";
       "a grievous offense against morality"; "a grievous crime";
       "no excess was too monstrous for them to commit" [syn:
       {atrocious}, {flagitious}, {grievous}, {monstrous}]
    

Grievous \Griev"ous\, a. [OF. grevous, grevos, LL. gravosus. See
   {Grief}.]
   1. Causing grief or sorrow; painful; afflictive; hard to
      bear; offensive; harmful.
      [1913 Webster]

            The famine was grievous in the land.  --Gen. xii.
                                                  10.
      [1913 Webster]

            The thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight.
                                                  --Gen. xxi.
                                                  11.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. Characterized by great atrocity; heinous; aggravated;
      flagitious; as, a grievous sin. --Gen. xviii. 20.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. Full of, or expressing, grief; showing great sorrow or
      affliction; as, a grievous cry. -- {Griev"ous*ly}, adv. --
      {Griev"ous*ness}, n.
      [1913 Webster]
    

157 Moby Thesaurus words for "grievous":
      abominable, acute, affecting, afflictive, aggrieved, anguished,
      appalling, arrant, atrocious, awful, base, beastly,
      beneath contempt, bitter, black, blameworthy, bleak, brutal,
      burdensome, calamitous, careworn, cataclysmal, cataclysmic,
      catastrophic, cheerless, comfortless, contemptible, damaging,
      dangerous, demanding, deplorable, depressing, depressive,
      despicable, destructive, detestable, dire, disastrous,
      discomforting, disgusting, dismal, dismaying, distasteful,
      distressful, distressing, doleful, dolorific, dolorogenic,
      dolorous, dreadful, dreary, dumb with grief, egregious, enormous,
      exacting, exigent, fatal, fell, fetid, filthy, flagrant, foul,
      fulsome, galling, grave, grief-stricken, griefful, grieved, gross,
      harmful, hateful, heartbreaking, heartrending, heavy, heinous,
      horrible, horrid, hurtful, in grief, infamous, intolerable,
      joyless, lamentable, loathsome, lousy, lugubrious, major,
      monstrous, mournful, moving, nasty, nefarious, noisome, notorious,
      obnoxious, odious, offensive, oppressive, outrageous, painful,
      pathetic, piteous, pitiable, pitiful, plaintive, plangent,
      plunged in grief, poignant, rank, regrettable, reprehensible,
      repulsive, rotten, rueful, ruinous, sad, saddening, scandalous,
      schlock, scurvy, serious, severe, shabby, shameful, sharp,
      shocking, shoddy, sordid, sore, sorrowed, sorrowful, sorrowing,
      squalid, superincumbent, taxing, tearful, terrible, too bad,
      touching, tough, tragic, ugly, unbearable, unclean, uncomfortable,
      unfortunate, unpalatable, vile, villainous, weighty, woebegone,
      woeful, worst, worthless, wounding, wreckful, wretched