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HOW TO PRONOUNCE

gross

/ɡɹoʊs/

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American Pronunciation Guide · 1:05
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Use the vowel in “go.”

Use one syllable, starting with g and r together. Finish with an unvoiced s; the double s spelling does not add a vowel or a second syllable.

1 syllable

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The table lists the gross total.

APG practice sentence · CC BY-SA 4.0

CMU Pronouncing Dictionary

What does gross mean?

adjective

  1. remarkably great, big, vast in an often unpleasant way; (of behaviour) Highly or conspicuously offensive.
  2. Excluding any deductions; including all associated amounts.
  3. Seen without a microscope (usually for a tissue or an organ); at a large scale; not detailed.
More meanings (14)

adjective

  1. (informal) Causing disgust.
  2. Lacking refinement in behaviour or manner; offending a standard of morality.
  3. Lacking refinement; not of high quality.
  4. Dense, heavy.
  5. Heavy in proportion to one's height; having a lot of excess flesh.
  6. Difficult or impossible to see through.
  7. (archaic) Not sensitive in perception or feeling.
  8. (obsolete) Easy to perceive.

noun

  1. Twelve dozen = 144.
  2. The total amount (of goods, money, etc) before taxes, expenses, exceptions, tares, or similar deductions are subtracted.
  3. The bulk; the mass.

verb

  1. To earn money, not including expenses.

proper noun

  1. A surname from Middle English, originally a nickname for a big man, from Middle English gros (“large”).
  2. A village in Nebraska, having a population of two as of 2010.

Definitions regrouped for readability · CC BY-SA 4.0

IPA pronunciation

/ɡɹoʊs/

Pronunciation used in the listening tip.

CMU Pronouncing Dictionary

Pronunciation varies by speaker and region. About these dictionary pronunciations.

In the pages of books

See this word in context.

Have I laid my brain in the sun, and dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross o’erreaching as this?
William ShakespeareThe Complete Works of William ShakespeareProject Gutenberg ebook #100
But nevertheless in his secret soul he detested Europe, and he felt an irritating need to protest against Newman’s gross intellectual hospitality.
Henry JamesThe AmericanProject Gutenberg ebook #177
More book examples (3)
Clear at the foot of the ladder lay the gross industrial population, souls imperfectly outlined, excluded from the glory of the elect.
P.-J. (Pierre-Joseph) ProudhonSystem of Economical Contradictions; Or, The Philosophy of MiseryProject Gutenberg ebook #444
And to apply the same presumption to all, on the ground of age alone, is not only gross injustice, but gross folly.
Lysander SpoonerAn Essay on the Trial By JuryProject Gutenberg ebook #1201
That which has the wave-motion is either aether or 'gross matter', but in either case is what the philosopher would call matter.
Bertrand RussellThe Problems of PhilosophyProject Gutenberg ebook #5827