grub
Americannoun
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grubs
plural
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the thick-bodied, sluggish larva of several insects, as of a scarab beetle.
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a dull, plodding person; drudge.
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an unkempt person.
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Slang. food; victuals.
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any remaining roots or stumps after cutting vegetation to clear land for farming.
verb (used with object)
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grubs,
present (3rd person singular)
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grubbed,
past participle, past
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grubbing
present participle
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to dig; clear of roots, stumps, etc.
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to dig up by the roots; uproot (often followed by up orout ).
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Slang. to supply with food; feed.
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Slang. to scrounge.
to grub a cigarette.
verb (used without object)
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grubs,
present (3rd person singular)
-
grubbed,
past participle, past
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grubbing
present participle
-
to dig; search by or as if by digging.
We grubbed through piles of old junk to find the deed.
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to lead a laborious or groveling life; drudge.
It's wonderful to have money after having to grub for so many years.
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to engage in laborious study.
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Slang. to eat; take food.
verb
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to search for and pull up (roots, stumps, etc) by digging in the ground
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to dig up the surface of (ground, soil, etc), esp to clear away roots, stumps, etc
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(intr; often foll by in or among) to search carefully
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(intr) to work unceasingly, esp at a dull task or research
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slang to provide (a person) with food or (of a person) to take food
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slang (tr) to scrounge
to grub a cigarette
noun
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the short legless larva of certain insects, esp beetles
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slang food; victuals
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a person who works hard, esp in a dull plodding way
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informal a dirty child
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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grubsimple
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grubssimple
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have grubbedperfect
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has grubbedperfect
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am grubbingprogressive
-
are grubbingprogressive
-
is grubbingprogressive
-
have been grubbingperfect progressive
-
has been grubbingperfect progressive
Past
-
grubbedsimple
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had grubbedperfect
-
was grubbingprogressive
-
were grubbingprogressive
-
had been grubbingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of grub
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English grubbe (noun), grubben (verb); akin to Old High German grubilōn “to dig,” German grübeln “to rack (the brain),” Old Norse gryfia “hole, pit”; see grave 1, groove
Explanation
The noun grub can refer either to a soft, young insect or to hearty food. If your best friend invites you over for some grub, don't worry — she almost certainly means the food and not the bugs. The grubs your dad picks off of his tomato plant are insects, while the grub you eat in the school cafeteria includes spaghetti and Sloppy Joes. The most interesting thing about this word is how it went from describing a squishy, arguably gross little beetle larva to an informal term for something delicious. Experts guess that it comes from birds gobbling grubs. This slang definition has been around since the 17th century.
Vocabulary lists containing grub
Life Is So Good
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Fantastic Mr. Fox
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The Odyssey
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The gilded grub became something of a sensation at this year’s Formula One Miami Grand Prix and Miami Open tennis tournament, starring in countless social media videos and selling out at both events.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
He replied "grub" when asked about Britain's disgraced former prince Andrew, and "winner" at the mention of Melbourne-born Formula One driver Oscar Piastri.
From Barron's ● Feb. 26, 2026
When asked for a response to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, he said "grub" which drew applause from the audience.
From BBC ● Feb. 25, 2026
Watching with delight in spring as a male redbird presents his mate with an edible demonstration of his “fitness as a partner,” she comments, “In the avian world, a grub is an engagement ring.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 6, 2024
The young wasp, hatching as a larva, feeds on the paralyzed grub and destroys it.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
But there’s a worse problem: grubs, the larvae of flies.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
She uses it to tap fatefully on trees and listen for the tiny movements of tasty grubs within, which she then extracts using those same Nosferatu phalanges.
From Salon ● May 11, 2025
Some may overwinter as adults, others in their immature stage as grubs, caterpillars or nymphs, while others will be in the pupal stage like a chrysalis or cocoon.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 6, 2024
The masked-bandit bottom feeders of the forest are notoriously adept at finding everything from grubs under your sod to chicken in your tent.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 28, 2023
Looking down at the rabbit again, Kingshaw suddenly noticed a great, mealy wound inside its ear, full of matter and blood and grubs.
From "I'm the King of the Castle" by Susan Hill
Prized ancient vineyards across France are being grubbed up.
From BBC ● Dec. 25, 2024
This summer, the Matinicus Rock team grubbed a 32-year-old puffin — one of the original birds in Project Puffin, brought down from Newfoundland as a chick and raised on Seal Island.
From Salon ● Jan. 7, 2022
“The natural underwood has been grubbed up,” Olmsted wrote at the time, “the trees, to a height of 10 to 15 feet, trimmed to bare poles.”
From New York Times ● Jul. 13, 2016
But it was nearly lost for ever: in the 1970s, the Khmer Rouge ordered that Cambodia’s pepper vines be grubbed up and replaced with rice paddies.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 28, 2015
I couldn’t think at first what would make the sort of light I needed, then recollected a clump of bear grass that Mama’d recently grubbed out, where she wanted to start a new fall garden.
From "Old Yeller" by Fred Gipson
When the rail authority bought the farms surrounding their home, about 50 miles south of Fresno, it let the crops die without grubbing the fields, the source of the pest problem, say the couple.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 29, 2021
There was a lot of greedy grubbing for grants.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 25, 2020
Much of it, indeed, is conducted at ground level, with Tom grubbing for mushrooms or eating a hard-boiled egg and then strewing the shell fragments around a vegetable patch.
From The New Yorker ● Jun. 22, 2018
"This isn't a statesmanlike speech, this is one of somebody grubbing around in the weeds for weak arguments and it's a very poor speech in that regard."
From BBC ● Feb. 28, 2018
“We go grubbing along day after day, without a bit of change, and very little fun. We might as well be in a treadmill.”
From "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
