The grue- in gruesome is derived from a now-extinct Middle English verb meaning “to shudder”, while –some is a suffix denoting a quality. The word grue was first documented in a fourteenth-century Scottish dialect as grew, and both words were not commonly used until the late nineteenth century when novelist Sir Walter Scott popularized the term through his writings, although he rarely used the verb form. Some etymologists believe that the word grew may have Scandinavian origins due to its history and cognates in languages like Dutch, while others argue that it could have originated from Middle German or Middle Dutch grewen, both derived from the Proto-Germanic reconstruction gruwijana, with the same meaning. It is important to note that gruesome is not related to gruelling, which comes from a different Germanic root meaning “grain”.
