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
-
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:
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
How did a recherché, quasi-French dish leave the skillful hands of Thomas Jefferson’s enslaved cooks and wind up being popular grub for millions of today’s cooks and consumers, white and—emphatically—black?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 13, 2026
Or was it a food stall dishing out free grub?
From BBC ● Jan. 20, 2026
Customers lean over counters and scarf down the grub from plastic plates.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 23, 2024
Yvonne teased, “Lolly got all that grub in his hands and ain’t hungry?”
From "The Stars Beneath Our Feet" by David Barclay Moore
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
Over time, we were able to lock down the dumpsters and force the animals to feed on seeds, bugs, grubs, grasses and all the other natural foods that keep them healthy and fit.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 28, 2023
A few days later, workers for a lawn-care company let themselves into our backyard to treat it for grubs.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 24, 2023
The plains hid no rodents, no grubs, no worms, no snakes, no scorpions; they gave rise to no other trees, no shrubs, no grasses, no flowers.
From "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel
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
After much exhausting digging, he grubbed up four more, ate two, and stuffed two in his jerkin for later.
From "Wolf Brother" by Michelle Paver
We have to ask ourselves as a society: Do we want college to be a place of intellectual growth or a performative exercise in grade grubbing?
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 5, 2024
We’re soon on our knees, grubbing in the dirt.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 27, 2021
It was a dangerous, pungent way to make a pittance, and I wonder what my Victorian sisters would think of grubbing around in the mud for the sheer joy of it.
From New York Times ● Apr. 1, 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
He startled a young boar grubbing up pignuts, and grunted a quick apology to ward off an attack.
From "Wolf Brother" by Michelle Paver
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