Definition of "grail"

grail¹

/ɡɹeɪl/

noun
plural grails
1. The Holy Grail.
  Quotations
  The quest for the Grail is not archeology. It's a race against evil. If it is captured by the Nazis, the armies of darkness will march all over the face of the earth. Do you understand me?
  1989, 1:06:54 from the start, in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade‎ (Action-Adventure), spoken by Henry Jones, Sr. (Sean Connery)
2. Something eagerly sought or quested for.
  Quotations
  How many of them had found the item they dreamt of, their personal grails?
  2002, Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man, Penguin Books (2003), page 214

grail²

/ɡɹeɪl/

noun
plural grails
1. A book of offices in the Roman Catholic Church; a gradual.
  Quotations
  antiphonals, missals, grails, processionals, etc.
  1694, John Strype, the Memorials of Thomas Cranmer

grail³

/ɡɹeɪl/

noun
uncountable
1. (poetic) Small particles of earth; gravel.
  Quotations
  Hereof this gentle knight vnweeting was, / And lying downe vpon the sandie graile, / Drunke of the streame, as cleare as cristall glas [...].
  1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie

grail⁴

/ɡɹeɪl/

noun
plural grails
1. One of the small feathers of a hawk.