Etymograph

English

gross

Gross comes from Middle English gros ‘large, thick, full-bodied’, from Old French gros ‘swollen, pregnant’, and ultimately from Latin grossus ‘big, fat, thick’.

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEgrossus1‘big’
  2. Old Frenchc. 842–1400gros1‘swollen’
  3. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500gros1‘large’
  4. Englishearliest quotation c. 1587–1588gross1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English gross
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1587–1588, Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […]: “For he is groſſe and like the maſſie earth,…”.

Lineage

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEgrossusWiktionary, English gross‘big’
  2. Old Frenchc. 842–1400grosWiktionary, English gross‘swollen’
  3. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500grosWiktionary, English gross‘large’
  4. Englishearliest quotation c. 1587–1588grossWiktionary, English gross. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1587–1588, Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […]: “For he is groſſe and like the maſſie earth,…”

The story

From Middle English gros (‘large, thick, full-bodied; coarse, unrefined, simple’), from Old French gros, from Latin grossus (“big, fat, thick”, in Late Latin also “coarse, rough”), of uncertain further origin but perhaps related to Proto-Celtic *brassos (‘great, violent’).uncertain The source flags this step as uncertain.

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Linked words

through Latin grossus ‘big, fat, thick’

grosz, 1 more

Today it means

adj remarkably great, big, vast in an often unpleasant way; (of behaviour) Highly or conspicuously offensive.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “gross”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Latin grossus / gross

Shirt and support for this word