U

have one foot in the grave

noun

an excavation made in the earth in which to bury a dead body.
any place of interment; a tomb or sepulcher: a watery grave.
any place that becomes the receptacle of what is dead, lost, or past: the grave of unfulfilled ambitions.
death: O grave, where is thy victory?

Idioms

have one foot in the grave, to be so frail, sick, or old that death appears imminent: It was a shock to see my uncle looking as if he had one foot in the grave.
make (one) turn/turn overin one’s grave, to do something to which a specified dead person would have objected bitterly: This production of Hamlet is enough to make Shakespeare turn in his grave.

noun

a place for the burial of a corpse, esp beneath the ground and usually marked by a tombstoneRelated adjective: sepulchral
something resembling a grave or resting placethe ship went to its grave
the grave a poetic term for death
have one foot in the grave informal to be near death
to make someone turn in his grave or to make someone turn over in his grave to do something that would have shocked or distressed (someone now dead)many modern dictionaries would make Dr Johnson turn in his grave

adjective

serious and solemna grave look
full of or suggesting dangera grave situation
important; crucialgrave matters of state
(of colours) sober or dull
phonetics
1. (of a vowel or syllable in some languages with a pitch accent, such as ancient Greek) spoken on a lower or falling musical pitch relative to neighbouring syllables or vowels
2. of or relating to an accent (`) over vowels, denoting a pronunciation with lower or falling musical pitch (as in ancient Greek), with certain special quality (as in French), or in a manner that gives the vowel status as a syllable nucleus not usually possessed by it in that position (as in English agèd)Compare acute (def. 8), circumflex

noun

a grave accent

verb graves, graving, graved, graved or graven (tr) archaic

to cut, carve, sculpt, or engrave
to fix firmly in the mind

verb

(tr) nautical to clean and apply a coating of pitch to (the bottom of a vessel)

adjective, adverb

music to be performed in a solemn manner

Old English græf “grave, ditch, cave,” from Proto-Germanic *graban (cf. Old Saxon graf, Old Frisian gref, Old High German grab “grave, tomb;” Old Norse gröf “cave,” Gothic graba “ditch”), from PIE root *ghrebh- “to dig, to scratch, to scrape” (cf. Old Church Slavonic grobu “grave, tomb”); related to grafan “to dig” (see grave (v.)).

“The normal mod. representation of OE. græf would be graff; the ME. disyllable grave, from which the standard mod. form descends, was prob. due to the especially frequent occurrence of the word in the dat. (locative) case. [OED]

From Middle Ages to 17c., they were temporary, crudely marked repositories from which the bones were removed to ossuaries after some years and the grave used for a fresh burial. “Perpetual graves” became common from c.1650. To make (someone) turn in his grave “behave in some way that would have offended the dead person” is first recorded 1888.

adj.

1540s, from Middle French grave (14c.), from Latin gravis “weighty, serious, heavy, grievous, oppressive,” from PIE root *gwere- “heavy” (cf. Sanskrit guruh “heavy, weighty, venerable;” Greek baros “weight,” barys “heavy in weight,” often with the notion of “strength, force;” Old English cweorn “quern;” Gothic kaurus “heavy;” Lettish gruts “heavy”). Greek barys (opposed to kouphos) also was used figuratively, of suffering, sorrow, sobbing, and could mean “oppressive, burdensome, grave, dignified, impressive.” The noun meaning “accent mark over a vowel” is c.1600, from French.

“to engrave,” Old English grafan (medial -f- pronounced as “v” in Old English; past tense grof, past participle grafen) “to dig, carve, dig up,” from Proto-Germanic *grabanan (cf. Old Norse grafa, Old Frisian greva, Dutch graven, Old High German graban, German graben, Gothic graban “to dig, carve”), from the same source as grave (n.). Its Middle English strong past participle, graven, is the only part still active, the rest of the word supplanted by its derivative, engrave.

adj.

Serious or dangerous, as a symptom or disease.

see dig one’s own grave; from the cradle to the grave; one foot in the grave; turn in one’s grave.