Grunt
noun, verb, slang ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A short snorting sound, often to show disapproval, or used as a reply when one is reluctant to speak.
"The stranger, with a comfortable kind of grunt over his pipe, put his legs up on the settle that he had to himself."
- 2 medium-sized tropical marine food fishes that utter grunting sounds when caught wordnet
- 3 The snorting cry of a pig.
- 4 the short low gruff noise of the kind made by hogs wordnet
- 5 Any fish of the perciform family Haemulidae.
Show 5 more definitions
- 6 an unskilled or low-ranking soldier or other worker wordnet
- 7 A person who does ordinary and boring work.
- 8 An infantry soldier. US, slang
"The poges stare at the grunts as though the grunts were Hell's Angels at the ballet."
- 9 The amount of power of which a vehicle is capable. slang
"The engine might not possess quite as much grunt as the later 24v six, but it delivers invigorating performance […]"
- 10 A dessert of steamed berries and dough, usually blueberries; blueberry grunt. Canada, US
- 1 To make a grunt or grunts. intransitive
"to grunt and sweat under a weary life"
- 2 issue a grunting, low, animal-like noise wordnet
- 3 To make a grunt or grunts. intransitive
- 4 To break wind; to fart. UK, intransitive, slang
"Who just grunted?"
Example
More examples"What do you expect from a pig but a grunt."
Etymology
From Middle English grunten, from Old English grunnettan (“to grunt”), from Proto-West Germanic *grunnattjan, from Proto-Germanic *grunnatjaną (“to grunt”), frequentative of Proto-Germanic *grunnōną (“to grunt”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrun- (“to shout”). Cognate with German grunzen (“to grunt”), Danish grynte (“to grunt”). The noun senses are all instances of zero derivation from the verb.