Family name origins & meanings
- German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : nickname for a big man, from Middle High German grōz ‘large’, ‘thick’, ‘corpulent’, German gross. The Jewish name has been Hebraicized as Gadol, from Hebrew gadol ‘large’.
- English : nickname for a big man, from Middle English, Old French gros (Late Latin grossus, of Germanic origin, thus etymologically the same word as in 1 above). The English vocabulary word did not develop the sense ‘excessively fat’ until the 16th century.