grimy
Americanadjective
-
grimier,
comparative
-
grimiest
superlative
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
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.
See Examples For:
Much about the grimy parts of Burning Man is left unmentioned, leaving it up to Redditors to gripe about sanitation pile-ups departing Burners leave in nearby towns.
From Salon ● Jul. 24, 2026
A plainspoken veteran with a dense beard and a closet full of grimy sweatshirts, Platner fit the bill.
From Slate ● Jul. 8, 2026
MT: Speaking of being grimy — you were also really affected by Burning Man.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 25, 2026
“They’re a grimy group—and I say that with great respect.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 17, 2025
There’s a bowl in the sink, half filled with grimy water.
From "Code Name Kingfisher" by Liz Kessler
More than a decade after scam rap emerged from the buzzier, grimier corners of Detroit hip-hop, a scammer anthem from a South Floridian is arguably the song of the summer.
From Salon ● Aug. 21, 2026
At the Brit Awards, they traded the fiery red aesthetic for a grimier, postapocalyptic, Mad Max-inspired look, drawing more from the music video’s auto “body shop” themes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 15, 2023
While the trailer invited comparisons to “Child’s Play,” the slasher film featuring the doll Chucky, that movie had a much grimier, disreputable undercurrent before the sequels and reboots turned goofy.
From New York Times ● Jan. 5, 2023
The “Cinema Novo” movement of social realism commented and pushed back against this political shift, but in that same year, a singular iconoclast mounted a grimier, bloodier form of rebellion newly relevant to our present.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 30, 2020
It’s grimier than when I clean my usual spot at lunch.
From "The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl" by Stacy McAnulty
By novel’s end, anyplace — even the grimiest, meanest streets of hard-boiled crime fiction — seem preferable to the sinister and silent watchfulness of the lush Irish countryside.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 5, 2020
Deep-cleaning crews have visited many of the grimiest concrete subterranean stations — in some cases, for the first time in years.
From New York Times ● Jun. 25, 2017
And it’s hands down, to quote Beyoncé, the grimiest song I’ve heard all year.
From Slate ● Sep. 2, 2014
Young Jon, however, insisted on driving around in a beat-up van and eating in the grimiest diners possible.
From Time ● May 12, 2011
Every inch of grass was covered with tents—row after crooked row of the grimiest, droopiest tents Nate had ever seen.
From I Survived the American Revolution, 1776 by Lauren Tarshis
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.
