1. A physical hole in the ground where someone is buried.
- "O, here / Will I set up my everlasting rest, / And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars / From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last! / Arms, take your last embrace! and lips, O you / The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss / A dateless bargain to engrossing death! Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavory guide! / Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on / The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark. / Here's to my love! (Drinks.) O true apothecary! / Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die. (Falls back and dies.)" (5.3.113-124).
2. A place of interment, often a cemetery or churchyard.
- "The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb; / What is her burying grave that is her womb." (2.3.10-11).
3. A serious or important matter.
- "My heart is full of woes, / And mine eyes heavy with dissembling cure." (1.1.191-192).
4. Deadly, fatal, or life-threatening.
- "This is a serious wound, my lord, and will require careful treatment. You must rest and avoid any further exertion."
5. Figurative grave in the sense of "deep"
- "She speaks, yet she says not thing; what of her speech?" (1.5.47)
6. Figurative grave in the sense of "secret."
- "I fear thou wilt o'ertake / The time to post. My lord, I must forthwith." (5.2.11-12)
7. Figurative grave in the sense of "dangerous"
- "Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous, / That she doth give her sorrow so much sway, / And in his wisdom hastes our marriage, / To stop the inundation of her tears, / Which, too much minded by herself alone, / May be put from her by society." (4.1.14-20)