grunge
Americannoun
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dirt; filth; rubbish.
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something of inferior quality; trash.
He didn't know good music from grunge.
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a person who works hard, usually for meager rewards; grind.
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a style or fashion derived from a movement in rock music: in fashion characterized by unkempt clothing and in music by aggressive, nihilistic songs.
noun
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slang dirt or rubbish
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a style of rock music originating in the US in the late 1980s, featuring a distorted guitar sound
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a deliberately untidy and uncoordinated fashion style
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of grunge
1960–65; expressive coinage, perhaps reflecting grime and sludge; sense “grind” perhaps by association with drudge
Explanation
Grunge is a grimy, sooty, or otherwise dirty state. The grunge of a rented cabin might have you re-thinking your plans to camp there all weekend. You may romanticize the idea of working on cars at a garage, including the grunge under your fingernails. Grunge is dirt and grime, or the condition of being covered in it. In the mid-1980s, the word was loaned to a new kind of underground music, and the style and culture surrounding it. Mark Arm, the lead singer for a Seattle band, is usually credited with coining this meaning of grunge when he wrote in a 1981 zine, "Pure grunge! Pure noise!"
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.
What it says about America: Grunge brought Gen X disillusionment to the center of American culture.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 1, 2026
Grunge music: a source of validation for a generation of disaffected youth.
From Science Magazine • Dec. 13, 2023
The following year would bring us Richard Linklater's spirit-of-'76 all-night-long chronicle "Dazed and Confused," with its classic-rock soundtrack used to connect the disaffected kids of the '70s with the Grunge generation of the '90s.
From Salon • Oct. 9, 2022
Then she moved onto soundtracks, noticing a pack of Grunge Tarot cards on the way.
From New York Times • Jan. 21, 2022
Grunge music dominated the airwaves, with bands like Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden performing mosh-pit-appropriate tracks.
From "Americanized" by Sara Saedi
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.
