Gross means very obviously wrong, in a way that cannot be excused. Gross negligence, gross misconduct, a gross exaggeration.
In that sense it means flagrant and is common in law and disciplinary language. The informal sense is disgusting — that is gross — and is the one most learners meet first. In money, gross means before deductions, against net: gross income, gross weight, gross domestic product. And a gross is twelve dozen, 144, which is a unit still used in wholesale. Note grossly, which belongs mainly to the flagrant sense: grossly unfair.
1adjectivegrossVery obviously wrong and inexcusable.
“It was gross negligence and the case took a day.”
2adjectivedisgustingDisgusting.
“The state of the fridge was frankly gross.”
3adjectivedeductionsBefore deductions.
“That is the gross figure and the net is much lower.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
gross is a quality of being total or coarse.
Latin grossus meant thick or coarse, and French gros gave English both the size and the coarseness. Grocer is the same word — a merchant who sold in gross, by the large quantity — which links the disgusting sense to the corner shop.
Proto-Indo-European
*gʰer-
Latin
grossus — big, fat, thick
Old French
gros
Middle English
gros — large, thick, full-bodied; coarse, unrefined, simple
English, today
gross
Built from
From Middle English gros (“large, thick, full-bodied; coarse, unrefined, simple”), from Old French gros, from Latin grossus (“big, fat, thick”), of uncertain further origin but perhaps related to brassos (“great, violent”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA