great

From Middle English greet, grete (“great, large”), from Old English grēat (“big, massive; tall; thick; coarse”), from Proto-West Germanic *graut, from Proto-Germanic *grautaz (“coarse, crude; big, large”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrewd-, *gʰer- (“to rub; to stroke; to grind; to remove”).

Cognates

Cognate with Scots graat, great, greet (“great”), Yola graat (“great”), North Frisian grat, groot, grot, grut, gråt, gurt (“big, great, large”), Saterland Frisian groot (“big, large”), West Frisian grut (“big, great, large”), Alemannic German groß, gruuss (“very large”), Central Franconian jruß (“big, great, large”), Cimbrian gròas, groaz (“big, great, large”), Dutch and German Low German groot (“big, great, large”), German gross, groß (“big, large”), Limburgish grut, gruët (“big, large; grand; tall; adult; pregnant”), Luxembourgish grouss (“big, great, large”), Mòcheno groas (“big, great, large”), Vilamovian grus, grūs (“big, great, large”), Yiddish גרויס (groys, “big, large”); also Latin grandis (“big, great, large”), Greek χρίω (chrío, “to anoint”), Albanian grind (“to brawl, fight”), Latvian grauds (“grain”), Lithuanian grūdas (“grain”), Czech hrouda, hruda (“clod”), Macedonian грутка (grutka, “clod, clump, lump”), Polish gruda (“clod, lump; frozen ground; mud fever, scratches”), Russian гру́да (grúda, “clod, heap, mass, pile”), Serbo-Croatian гру̏да, гру̏два, grȕda, grȕdva (“clod, lump; snowball”), Armenian կորկոտ (korkot, “groats of wheat or barley”), Sanskrit घर्षति (gharṣati, “to brush, polish, rub”). Related to grit. Doublet of gross.

The modern pronunciation shows an irregular change of Early Modern English /ɛː/ to /eɪ/ in the standard language; contrast this with the development of other words such as beat and heat.