engross
/ɪnˈɡɹəʊs/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 1.80 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To write (a document) in large, aesthetic, and legible lettering; to make a finalized copy of.
Transitive verb
verb
To buy up wholesale, especially to buy the whole supply of (a commodity etc.).
Obsolete; Transitive verb
verb
To monopolize; to concentrate (something) in the single possession of someone, especially unfairly.
Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "This envelope had the air of an official record of some period long past, when clerks engrossed their stiff and formal chirography on more substantial materials than at present."
- "laws that may be engrossed upon a finger nail"
- "Wherefore Mr. Micawber […] set to work at the petition, invented it, engrossed it on an immense sheet of paper, spread it out on a table, and appointed a time for all the club, and all within the walls if they chose, to come up to his room and sign it."
- "After which time the Popes of Rome, engroſſing what they pleas'd of Politicall rule into their owne hands, extended their dominion over mens eyes, as they had before over their judgements, burning and prohibiting to be read, what they fanſied not; […]"
- "The Coral Islands are principally visited by the pearl-shell fishermen, who arrive in small schooners, carrying not more than five or six men. For a long while the business was engrossed by Merenhout, the French Consul at Tahiti, but a Dutchman by birth, who, in one year, is said to have sent to France fifty thousand dollars' worth of shells."
- "Octavian then engrosses for himself proconsular powers for ten years in all the provinces where more than one legion was stationed, giving him effective control of the army"
Etymology
From Middle English engrossen, from Anglo-Norman engrosser (“to gather in large quantities, draft something in final form”); partly from the phrase en gros (“in bulk, in quantity, at wholesale”), from en- + gros; and partly from Medieval Latin ingrossō (“thicken, write something large and in bold lettering”, v.), from in- + grossus (“great, big, thick”), from Old High German grōz (“big, thick, coarse”), from Proto-West Germanic *graut, from Proto-Germanic *grautaz (“large, great, thick, coarse grained, unrefined”), from Proto-Indo-European *ghrewə- (“to fell, put down, fall in”). More at in-, gross. By surface analysis, en- + gross.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ɪnˈɡɹəʊs/
- British English: /ɪnˈɡɹəʊs/