grungy
Americanadjective
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ugly, run-down, or dilapidated.
a grungy, abandoned mill town.
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dirty; filthy.
a pair of grungy sneakers.
adjective
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squalid or seedy
-
(of pop music) characterized by a loud fuzzy guitar sound
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of grungy
Explanation
Something grungy is very dirty, like the old sweatshirt that your dog dragged outside and used as a bed. Are your hands absolutely filthy after tinkering with the engine of your old car? Then they're grungy, so ingrained with dirt and oil that you'll have to scrub to get them clean. Dirty and sloppy things are grungy too, like the grungy outfit you wear when you spend the day taking care of your uncle's pet pigs. This informal American slang word is probably influenced by both dingy and grubby.
Vocabulary lists containing grungy
The Sea of Monsters
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The Battle of the Labyrinth
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Simon Sort of Says
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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:
I have heard from haggard, decrepit millennials that it used to be different, that it used to be grungy and alternative.
From Slate ● Sep. 6, 2026
"I think there's never been anything like this done in trad before… With the all-female, and the grungy look as well," she said.
From BBC ● May 16, 2026
“Peter Hujar’s Day” and “Late Fame”: Two films I saw at this year’s festival concerned the grungy creative mystique of New York in the 1970s.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2025
There was this beautiful, really fun, cheap, grungy rehearsal studio in Culver City called Exposition Studios.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 30, 2025
The mosaic walls dimmed and turned grungy and faded again.
From "The Battle of the Labyrinth" by Rick Riordan
Celeste took our breath away with a grungier, angrier sound than the floaty jazz-soul of her debut.
From BBC ● Jun. 29, 2025
It delivered Davis’s first gold and platinum albums, and shifted mainstream jazz from elegant arrangements optimized for cramped nightclubs to bigger, grungier structures tailor-made for stadium speakers.
From New York Times ● Mar. 28, 2023
“It was all dirtier and grungier and louder. You’d have to go to Aberdeen to find anything close to it, with Melvins and Nirvana.”
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 18, 2022
The part called for Richards to be far grungier and physical than she is on reality TV — and to film a harrowing scene in a North Carolina swamp home to alligators and snakes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 15, 2021
As budding singer-songwriters with distinctive voices and a penchant for wordplay, they offered a much-needed bridge from plasticine 1980s pop to a grungier, earthier 1990s-era sound.
From Salon ● Apr. 25, 2020
Mr. Packard’s subjects are Los Angeles, its grungiest denizens, paranoia, and film itself.
From New York Times ● Jul. 20, 2018
Described by friends of the band as perhaps the group’s gothiest record, Taylor-Taylor considers This Machine the band’s grungiest.
From Time ● Apr. 25, 2012
"People are tired of finding the oldest, grungiest T shirt in a thrift store."
From Time Magazine Archive
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.
