Grateful

Grateful is an adjective describing the feeling of gratitude or appreciation for someone’s kindness, help, or benefits received. It is commonly used to express that one is glad for a particular outcome or assistance. In usage, grateful is often followed by for or to: one can be grateful for assistance received, or grateful to a person for their support. The noun form is gratitude, and the adverbial form is gratefully.

Etymology: grateful derives from Latin gratus meaning pleasing, via Old French gratifier or gratus; it entered English in the Middle English period. The sense developed from the idea of feeling pleased toward someone or something and later came to denote appreciation for benefits or favors.

Usage notes: Grateful can imply a sense of indebtedness or a moral obligation to reciprocate, depending on context. It is more personal and emotionally loaded than thankful, though many speakers use the terms interchangeably. In formal writing, grateful is appropriate when acknowledging another’s contribution or the advantages one has received.

See also: gratitude, gratefulness. In culture, the phrase appears in titles and expressions; for example, the band The Grateful Dead derives its name from folklore references to a grateful dead. The word also appears in various songs, poems, and works as a descriptor of sentiment or moral stance.