What does "gross" mean?

Gross: Coarse; rough; not fine or delicate.

Additional senses

  1. 2.Not easily aroused or excited; not sensitive in perception or feeling; dull; witless. Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear. Milton.
  2. 3.Expressing, Or originating in, animal or sensual appetites; hence, coarse, vulgar, low, obscene, or impure. The terms which are delicate in one age become gross in the next. Macaulay.
  3. 4.Thick; dense; not attenuated; as, a gross medium.
  4. 5.Great; palpable; serious; vagrant; shameful; as, a gross mistake; gross injustice; gross negligence.
  5. 6.Whole; entire; total; without deduction; as, the gross sum, or gross amount, the gross weight; -- opposed to net. Gross adventure (Law) the loan of money upon bottomry, i. e., on a mortgage of a ship. -- Gross average (Law), that kind of average which falls upon the gross or entire amount of ship, cargo, and freight; -- commonly called general average. Bouvier. Burrill. -- Gross receipts, the total of the receipts, before they are diminished by any deduction, as for expenses; -- distinguished from net profits. Abbott. -- Gross weight the total weight of merchandise or goods, without deduction for tare, tret, or waste; -- distinguished from neat, or net, weight.
  6. 7.The main body; the chief part, bulk, or mass. "The gross of the enemy." Addison. For the gross of the people, they are considered as a mere herd of cattle. Burke.
  7. 8.sing. & pl. The number of twelve dozen; twelve times twelve; as, a gross of bottles; ten gross of pens. Advowson in gross (Law), an advowson belonging to a person, and not to a manor. -- A great gross, twelve gross; one hundred and forty-four dozen. -- By the gross, by the quantity; at wholesale. -- Common in gross. (Law) See under Common, n. -- In the gross, In gross, in the bulk, or the undivided whole; all parts taken together.

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