🎓 College LevelThis shows grade level based on the word's complexity.
gruff [ gruhf ] SHOW IPA
/ grʌf / PHONETIC RESPELLING
🎓 College LevelThis shows grade level based on the word's complexity.
adjective, gruff·er, gruff·est.
low and harsh; hoarse: a gruff voice.
rough, brusque, or surly: a gruff manner.
QUIZ
GOOSES. GEESES. I WANT THIS QUIZ ON PLURAL NOUNS!
Test how much you really know about regular and irregular plural nouns with this quiz.
Question 1 of 9
Which of the following nouns has an irregular plural form?
Origin of gruff 1525–35; <Middle Dutch grof coarse; cognate with German grob
OTHER WORDS FROM gruff gruffish, adjective gruffly, adverb gruffness, noun un·gruff, adjective
Words nearby gruff gruel ,
grueling ,
gruelling ,
Gruenberg ,
gruesome ,
gruff ,
gruffy ,
grugru ,
gruiform ,
grum ,
grumble
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2022
Words related to gruff blunt ,
boisterous ,
brusque ,
crusty ,
dour ,
grumpy ,
nasty ,
offhand ,
surly ,
throaty ,
abrupt ,
bearish ,
boorish ,
churlish ,
crabbed ,
crabby ,
crude ,
curt ,
discourteous ,
fierce
How to use gruff in a sentence One can understand why Walter is being played in the way he is—he is your average gruff academic, seemingly detached from the real world around him, and lost in his own head and memories.
Close, a gruff iconoclast and minimalist who created Photorealist portraits across five decades, died on Thursday in New York at 81.
Lindell appears in those ads to hype his pillows with Billy Mays levels of gruff enthusiasm.
To the hordes who wanted time with Lincoln, the gruff and efficient Nicolay was the “grim enforcer.”
We needed him to be wary, absorbed, and a little bit gruff , and he gamely complied, thereby furthering his own self-made legend.
Bichir manages to be gruff but sensitive, honest yet mysterious, making Ruiz a mix of righteousness and compassion.
Kevin Whately has been playing gruff , sensible detective Robbie Lewis on ‘Morse’ and ‘Lewis’ for 26 years.
He has played the gruff detective from 1987 to 2000 on Morse and from 2006 to the present on Inspector Lewis.
As they were passing a place where the bushes grew thickly by the side of the road, they received a gruff command to halt.
The fact was that Benny himself did not know why he liked this stranger who was so gruff at times and so pleasant at others.
Even the gruff , grumpy, unsociable rhinoceros amiably allowed him to stroke its head with his trunk.
He spoke angrily, and no longer in a low tone, but gruff and loud enough to be heard some distance away.
"Salam Aliekoom," said a gruff voice, as a man with Peer Khan entered the tent.
SEE MORE EXAMPLES SEE FEWER EXAMPLES
British Dictionary definitions for gruff
adjective
rough or surly in manner, speech, etc a gruff reply
(of a voice, bark, etc) low and throaty
Derived forms of gruff gruffish , adjective gruffly , adverb gruffness , noun Word Origin for gruff C16: originally Scottish, from Dutch grof, of Germanic origin; compare Old High German girob; related to Old English hrēof, Lithuanian kraupùs
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