grub

American  

[gruhb] / grʌb /

noun

• grubs
  plural

1. the thick-bodied, sluggish larva of several insects, as of a scarab beetle.

2. a dull, plodding person; drudge.

3. an unkempt person.

4. Slang. food; victuals.

5. any remaining roots or stumps after cutting vegetation to clear land for farming.

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verb (used with object)

• grubs,
  present (3rd person singular)
• grubbed,
  past participle,  past
• grubbing
  present participle

1. to dig; clear of roots, stumps, etc.

2. to dig up by the roots; uproot (often followed by up orout ).

3. Slang. to supply with food; feed.

4. Slang. to scrounge.

   to grub a cigarette.

verb (used without object)

• grubs,
  present (3rd person singular)
• grubbed,
  past participle,  past
• grubbing
  present participle

1. to dig; search by or as if by digging.

   We grubbed through piles of old junk to find the deed.

2. to lead a laborious or groveling life; drudge.

   It's wonderful to have money after having to grub for so many years.

3. to engage in laborious study.

4. Slang. to eat; take food.

grub British  

/ ɡrʌb /

verb

1. to search for and pull up (roots, stumps, etc) by digging in the ground

2. to dig up the surface of (ground, soil, etc), esp to clear away roots, stumps, etc

3. (intr; often foll by in or among) to search carefully

4. (intr) to work unceasingly, esp at a dull task or research

5. slang to provide (a person) with food or (of a person) to take food

6. slang (tr) to scrounge

   to grub a cigarette

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noun

1. the short legless larva of certain insects, esp beetles

2. slang food; victuals

3. a person who works hard, esp in a dull plodding way

4. informal a dirty child

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• grubber
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• grubs
  plural

Participles

• grubbing
  present
• grubbed
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• grub
  simple
• grubs
  simple
• have grubbed
  perfect
• has grubbed
  perfect
• am grubbing
  progressive
• are grubbing
  progressive
• is grubbing
  progressive
• have been grubbing
  perfect progressive
• has been grubbing
  perfect progressive

Past

• grubbed
  simple
• had grubbed
  perfect
• was grubbing
  progressive
• were grubbing
  progressive
• had been grubbing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will grub
  simple
• will have grubbed
  perfect
• will be grubbing
  progressive
• will have been grubbing
  perfect progressive

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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

grub grubs grubbed grubbing

The beds and food bowls are gone; the floor where they always left messes after devouring the grub I made them is eerily clean.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 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

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

One early morning, with Nailer and Nita both elbow deep in blood as they gutted black eels for a grub shack, he admitted what he’d been thinking.

From "Ship Breaker" by Paolo Bacigalupi

But there’s a worse problem: grubs, the larvae of flies.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026

"They do an amazing job for nature, they eat grubs in the soil, they turn over the soil, they help soils drain and hold water".

From BBC ● Mar. 22, 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

Summoning up her courage, Shanti sang an Eastern-influenced riff and broke into a rap about living on an island, eating grubs, rescuing pirates, and eating weird berries.

From "Beauty Queens" by Libba Bray

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

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

I don't care if the money grubbing estates agree to make changes to appease current trends or appetites.

From New York Times ● Feb. 22, 2018

“Stand up straight. What’s the matter with you? Jim Bowie, those nails won’t do. You look like you’ve been grubbing in the garden. Calpurnia, take him and fix him.”

From "The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate" by Jacqueline Kelly

Related Words

• maggot
• worm