What does gross mean?
Gross is a versatile English adjective with several well-established meanings. Most commonly, it describes something disgusting, revolting, or highly unappealing, especially in informal speech. In business and finance, gross refers to a total before deductions: gross income is income before taxes and other expenses, while gross profit subtracts production costs but not operating expenses, taxes, or interest. Gross can also mean excessively large, as in a gross overestimate, or refer to something broad and visible, especially in the contrast between gross and microscopic anatomy. As a rare noun, a gross is a unit of 144 items, or 12 dozen. The word is useful because one familiar form connects ordinary moral and sensory judgments with technical financial and medical terminology. It is generally understood throughout Britain and the United States, though its meaning changes with context.
Disgusting or highly unappealing; consisting of a total before deductions; or excessively large.
"The film was filled with gross scenes and unappealing imagery."
The financial meaning is standard in formal and business contexts. The sense meaning disgusting is widespread in everyday usage, while the adjective can also mean broad or visible in technical contexts.
To calculate or increase an amount before deductions, especially in the phrase gross up; informally, to disgust.
"The finance team grossed up the earnings figures before comparing them with net pay."
This verb is much less common than the adjective. Gross up is used in financial contexts, while gross out is informal and usually means to cause intense disgust.
A unit equal to 144 items, or 12 dozen, used especially in commercial and historical contexts.
"The merchant ordered two gross of buttons for the workshop."
The noun is rare in modern general English but remains used in some trade, publishing, and historical contexts.
The plural is rare and is chiefly found in commercial or historical writing.
"The warehouse received three grosses of small parts."
The word gross is a linguistic shapeshifter: it can describe something disgusting, a financial total before deductions, or anatomy visible without a microscope.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does gross come from?
The English word comes through Old French from Latin grossus, an adjective associated with thickness, coarseness, size, and an unextended or total amount. Its development into modern English broadened those meanings to include coarse or unrefined qualities and, by extension, sensory disgust. Related English words such as grocer, grocery, and engross come through forms of the French gros, while the rare counting noun gross developed from the same broad commercial sense of a large bulk.
Related word forms
How gross is actually used
In its sense of disgusting, gross is common in everyday speech in both British and American English. Its financial sense contrasts with net, while its medical sense contrasts with microscopic. The verb is relatively uncommon and is most often encountered in gross up or gross out.
Easily confused with gross
Gross can mean disgusting or a total before deductions, whereas gloss means a shine or a brief explanation of a word's meaning.