grimy
Americanadjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of grimy
Explanation
Grimy things are so dirty that it takes some scrubbing to clean them. You'll probably feel pretty grimy after a day spent trying to fix the engine of an old car. When something is grimy, the dirt is ingrained or set in, not just on the surface. Jobs that leave you covered in oil, tar, or dirt are grimy. If you wear gloves to transplant your grandma's flowers, you won't end up with grimy fingernails. The adjective grimy comes from grime, "ingrained dirt," which goes back to a root that means "to smear."
Vocabulary lists containing grimy
The Sea of Monsters
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The Battle of the Labyrinth
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My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich
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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.
When the PCC was born in August 1993 inside the grimy walls of the Taubaté high-security prison in São Paulo state, its founders weren’t seeking world domination.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 20, 2026
Samantha’s father hires Nana away from her grimy pub-cleaning job to answer the phone at his taxi service: a good-hearted gesture or a bribe to keep her and Janey quiet?
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 13, 2026
Cohn’s sound design also offered a taste of the grimy, intense New York of the 1970s, but he wanted to remain flexible in terms of period fidelity.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 6, 2025
She took a picture of the grimy hotel room where she stayed, capturing the swirling cursive on the sign for the dialysis center across the street in the background.
From Salon • Nov. 2, 2025
Then his eyeballs were grimy, and he could barely see.
From "The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge" by M.T. Anderson and Eugene Yelchin
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.
