grateful
- 01 B1 Intermediate
feeling or showing thanks because someone has done something kind for you.
feeling or expressing gratitude; appreciative of a benefit or kindness received.
Simple“I am so grateful for all the help you gave me during the move.”
In context“The survivors were immensely grateful to the local community for providing food and shelter during the emergency.”
UsageCommonly follows the pattern 'grateful to someone for something'.
Teacher's tipWhile 'thankful' and 'grateful' are often interchangeable, 'grateful' is slightly more formal and often implies a deeper sense of personal obligation to a specific benefactor.
PitfallI am grateful of your help. I am grateful for your help.Use 'grateful for' followed by the thing you received, or 'grateful to' followed by the person who helped you.
SynonymsAntonymsungratefulthankless - 02 C2 Proficiency
describing something that is very pleasant or welcome, like a cool breeze on a hot day.
affording pleasure or relief; agreeable to the mind or senses.
Simple“The shade of the large oak tree was a grateful relief from the burning sun.”
In context“After days of trekking through the arid desert, the sight of the lush oasis was a grateful spectacle to the exhausted travellers.”
UsageIn modern English, this sense is almost exclusively found in literary descriptions of nature or physical relief.
Antonyms
From grate (“(obsolete) serving to gratify, agreeable, pleasing; grateful, thankful”) + -ful (suffix forming adjectives with the sense of tending to have or thoroughly having a quality). Grate is a learned borrowing from Latin grātus (“agreeable, pleasing; beloved, dear; grateful, thankful”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʷerH- (“to express approval, praise; to elevate”).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.