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Oct. 2nd, 2007 09:41 pmDay 2: Spooky Word Derivation
From Weird! The Complete Book of Halloween Words by Peter R. Limburg
"Gruesome comes from the Scottish verb, grue, that meant 'to feel horror' or 'to shudder'. Grue was often spelled grow, for people could not agree on how it should be spelled.
At some point during the Middle Ages, the ending some was tacked on to make an adjective. But gruesome remained a provincial word until Sir Walter Scott used it in his novel Old Mortality in 1816. He spelled it grewsome. The modern spelling did not take hold until after 1850."
From Weird! The Complete Book of Halloween Words by Peter R. Limburg
"Gruesome comes from the Scottish verb, grue, that meant 'to feel horror' or 'to shudder'. Grue was often spelled grow, for people could not agree on how it should be spelled.
At some point during the Middle Ages, the ending some was tacked on to make an adjective. But gruesome remained a provincial word until Sir Walter Scott used it in his novel Old Mortality in 1816. He spelled it grewsome. The modern spelling did not take hold until after 1850."