Definition of "grimness"

This one was almost featureless, as if still in the making, with an aspect of monotonous grimness.

1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], part I, page 202

This is a good example of Huxley's method of setting off against each other the frivolities of the artificial world and the grimnesses of the real one […]

2007, George Woodcock, Dawn and the Darkest Hour: A Study of Aldous Huxley, page 79