grubby
1dirty; slovenly: children with grubby faces and sad eyes.
infested with or affected by grubs or larvae.
contemptible: grubby political tricks.
Origin of grubby
1Other words for grubby
Other words from grubby
- grub·bi·ly, adverb
- grub·bi·ness, noun
Words Nearby grubby
Other definitions for grubby (2 of 2)
a small sculpin, Myxocephalus aenaeus, inhabiting waters off the coast of New England.
Origin of grubby
2Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use grubby in a sentence
For one, it’s easier to see dust and smudges on a dark surface, so you’ll be able to target those grubby fingerprints with surgical precision.
Tape and grips start out all sparkly clean but get grubby pretty quick.
There were many volumes about precocious British tots with “nannies and pony carts,” she said, but none that would appeal to “grubby neighborhood kids” like the boy before her — or to the adventure-seeking girl she had once been.
Beverly Cleary, beloved author who chronicled schoolyard scrapes and feisty kids, dies at 104 | Harrison Smith, Becky Krystal | March 26, 2021 | Washington PostFrom the outside, VertiVegies looked like a handful of grubby shipping containers put side by side and drilled together.
Inside Singapore’s huge bet on vertical farming | Katie McLean | October 13, 2020 | MIT Technology ReviewBut Paltrow and Lively insist on deep meaning besides the grubby business of trade.
Perfume bottles and weathered papyrus replicas gather dust in the grubby window displays of the empty shops.
Most of all, how could anyone film—or inflict upon viewers—such gratuitous, relentlessly grubby sexual content?
His friend to the north, Paul Kagame, is another authoritarian with grubby hands, feted nonetheless.
Liberian Nostalgia for War Criminal Charles Taylor | Finlay Young | April 28, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTBefore the envelope containing salacious details makes it into the grubby hands of the media, tell everything.
The cleaner-by-the-day will do the grubby things and I shall like it.
Jane Journeys On | Ruth Comfort Mitchell(p. 107) It was a grubby farm with not much water, but we made the best of it, and settled down for the night.
The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade | Edward Lord GleichenOpen the bag, and turn the contents out in the lap of the dark-colored robe, grubby hands poking.
The Jewels of Aptor | Samuel R. DelanyCross the Rockies to Vancouver, and you're back among dirty walls, grubby furniture, and inadequate literature again.
Letters from America | Rupert BrookeIt was some grubby affair that made me thank God for the sunlight.
Twelve Stories and a Dream | H. G. Wells
British Dictionary definitions for grubby
/ (ˈɡrʌbɪ) /
dirty; slovenly
mean; beggarly
infested with grubs
Derived forms of grubby
- grubbily, adverb
- grubbiness, noun
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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