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grub

Pronunciation: /ɡɹʌb/

The English word “grub” has 9 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. An insect, especially a beetle, at an immature stage of its life cycle.
  2. Food.
  3. A dirty person.
  4. A despicable person; a lowlife.
  5. A short, thick man; a dwarf.

verb

  1. To scavenge or in some way scrounge, typically for food.
  2. To dig; to dig up by the roots; to root out by digging; often followed by up.
  3. To supply with food.
  4. To eat.

Etymology

From Middle English grubben, grobben, from Old English *grubbian, from Proto-West Germanic *grubb-, from Proto-Germanic *grubb- (compare Middle Dutch grobben (“to scrape, scramble, grab”), Old High German grubilōn (“to dig, search”), German grübeln (“to meditate, ponder”)), from Proto-Germanic *grub- (“to dig”) (see *grabaną). The noun sense of "larva" is from Middle English grub, grubbe, grobbe,…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.