grime
Americannoun
-
dirt, soot, or other filthy matter, especially adhering to or embedded in a surface.
-
a style of music influenced by rap, ragga, etc., and characterized by lyrics and imagery that reference the dark side of urban life.
verb (used with object)
-
grimes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
grimed,
past participle, past
-
griming
present participle
noun
-
dirt, soot, or filth, esp when thickly accumulated or ingrained
-
a genre of music originating in the East End of London and combining elements of garage, hip-hop, rap, and jungle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
grimesimple
-
grimessimple
-
have grimedperfect
-
has grimedperfect
-
am grimingprogressive
-
are grimingprogressive
-
is grimingprogressive
-
have been grimingperfect progressive
-
has been grimingperfect progressive
Past
-
grimedsimple
-
had grimedperfect
-
was grimingprogressive
-
were grimingprogressive
-
had been grimingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of grime
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English grim; apparently special use of Old English grīma “mask,” to denote layer of dust; compare dialectal Dutch grijm
Explanation
Grime is gross, greasy, ingrained dirt, like the grime on your neighbor's van that tempts you to write "Clean Me" in it with your finger. You may find grime under your fingernails for days after your auto mechanics class, black oily dirt that requires a lot of scrubbing to remove. It's less common, but you can also use this word as a verb, meaning to make something this dirty: "They're going to grime the kitchen floor if they don't take their boots off!" The Germanic root of grime means "to smear."
Vocabulary lists containing grime
Talk Like Shakespeare Day, List 6
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
Born Behind Bars
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
The Night Diary
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
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 indignity and grime of poverty, the constant close proximity, the competitive scramble for decreasing amounts of writing time made them hunker defensively.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 1, 2026
Outside the ward, staff used water to clean the floor, while others rubbed soot and grime off the walls.
From Barron's ● Aug. 27, 2026
Whether it's the Bristol clubs that nurtured trip-hop, or the London underground clubs where grime emerged.
From BBC ● Jun. 25, 2026
Signs of poor cleaning include strong urine odors, dirty floors, and visible grime.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 13, 2026
I saw military washerwomen dressed in fine silk waistcoats for men, brocaded with water-stains and grime.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
The different greases and grimes each part creates.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 26, 2022
Sabela grimes for their performances in “The Motherboard Suite”; and Annique Roberts, for her work with the dance company Ronald K. Brown/Evidence.
From New York Times ● Oct. 12, 2021
Sabela grimes, is a bit of a departure in that it's more heavily Afro-Cuban than salsa-influenced.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 16, 2016
Boucher has written, on Tumblr, that “claire and grimes are completely different ppl at this point,” and has said, of a disappointing performance, “It wasn’t a Grimes show…. It was Claire pretending to be Grimes.”
From The New Yorker ● Nov. 19, 2015
It would be agreeable also to sleep in a chamber far from town noises and grimes, with few honks from late excursionists and but little early morning clatter from a diminished staff.
From Bertram Cope's Year by Henry Blake Fuller
Peter's troubles and the damage he causes are terrible in close-up, but seen through a broader lens grimed up by reality, they're almost tolerable.
From Salon ● Nov. 1, 2020
Wong’s works are as outré as Tseng’s are hermetic, landscapes that obscure the painter and take in the men — usually men, mostly Latino — behind the grimed facades of Manhattan’s then-frayed edges.
From New York Times ● Apr. 12, 2018
Scrap that off-brand toaster oven they’ve grimed up beyond recognition and buy them Cuisinart’s CSO-300 Steam Oven, capable of cutting cooking times by 40 percent.
From Newsweek
Dirt grimed the windows that he would not wash, settled thickly on the unswept floor.
From Time Magazine Archive
Above the grimed crescent of his fingernail was the verse, “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.”
From "Out of Darkness" by Ashley Hope Pérez
There was no gilding the lily, or rather the opposite: no griming the garbage can.
From Slate ● Dec. 20, 2016
Tears gleamed on the stern fighter's cheeks, there in the ghostly blue firelight—tears that washed little courses through the dust and sand now griming his face.
From The Flying Legion by George Allan England
Just as the cakes became heavier, tougher, more ordinary, as the months passed, so the whole enterprise suffered gradually from that coarsening and griming which seems an inevitable result of Chicago use.
From One Woman's Life by Robert Herrick
He picked up the book, griming the dainty pages as he turned them with his rough fingers, glancing at the headings.
From Hidden Water by Maynard Dixon
The confused indigene, driven by admonition and shame put on the hot and griming stuffs, and finally, had them kept on him by statute.
From Nonsenseorship by G. G. Putnam
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.
