1 (of people or behaviour) kind, polite and generous, especially to sb of a lower social position:
a gracious lady / hostess * a gracious smile * Lady Caroline was gracious enough to accept our invitation. * He has not yet learned how to be gracious in defeat.
2 [usuallybeforenoun] showing the comfort and easy way of life that wealth can bring:
gracious living
3 [onlybeforenoun] (BrE, formal) used as a very polite word for royal people or their actions:
her gracious Majesty the Queen * The performance will take place in the gracious presence of HRH the Prince of Wales.
4 ~ (to sb) (of God) showing kindness and MERCY:
a gracious act of God
5 (becoming old-fashioned) used for expressing surprise:
Goodness gracious! * 'I hope you didn't mind my phoning you.' 'Good gracious, no, of course not.'
graciously adverb:
She graciously accepted our invitation.
graciousness noun [U]:
His mother was graciousness itself during our stay. * The house retains its air of tranquillity and graciousness.
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for gracious is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is gracious a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, gracious is tagged as adjective.
Does gracious appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — gracious appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
