Grindhouse

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A low-budget film theater that shows primarily exploitation films US

    "For Mr. Bava[…], the road from the grindhouse to the art house — or at least, the virtual art house of the DVD player — has turned out to be surprisingly, encouragingly short."

Example

More examples

"For Mr. Bava[…], the road from the grindhouse to the art house — or at least, the virtual art house of the DVD player — has turned out to be surprisingly, encouragingly short."

Etymology

From grind + house. * Perhaps from the grinding or cranking motion employed by early projectionists. * Perhaps from bump and grind (dubious). The term may originally have been used for burlesque houses in the 1940s.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.