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Grub   /grəb/   Listen
noun
Grub  n.  
1.
(Zool.) The larva of an insect, especially of a beetle; called also grubworm. See Illust. of Goldsmith beetle, under Goldsmith. "Yet your butterfly was a grub."
2.
A short, thick man; a dwarf. (Obs.)
3.
Victuals; food. (Slang)
Grub ax or Grub axe, a kind of mattock used in grubbing up roots, etc.
Grub breaker. Same as Grub hook (below).
Grub hoe, a heavy hoe for grubbing.
Grub hook, a plowlike implement for uprooting stumps, breaking roots, etc.
Grub saw, a handsaw used for sawing marble.
Grub Street, a street in London (now called Milton Street), described by Dr. Johnson as "much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems, whence any mean production is called grubstreet." As an adjective, suitable to, or resembling the production of, Grub Street. "I 'd sooner ballads write, and grubstreet lays."



verb
Grub  v. t.  
1.
To dig; to dig up by the roots; to root out by digging; followed by up; as, to grub up trees, rushes, or sedge. "They do not attempt to grub up the root of sin."
2.
To supply with food. (Slang)



Grub  v. i.  (past & past part. grubbed, pres. part. grubbing)  
1.
To dig in or under the ground, generally for an object that is difficult to reach or extricate; to be occupied in digging.
2.
To drudge; to do menial work.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Grub" Quotes from Famous Books



... evening, before Maitre Achille Pigoult, notary of this place, the burial of Charles Dorlange took place,—that individual issuing to the world, like a butterfly from a grub, under the name and estate of Charles de Sallenauve, son of Francois-Henri-Pantaleon Dumirail, Marquis de Sallenauve. Here follows the tale of certain facts which preceded this ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... directions for acquiring and saving, that his old acquaintance, Mr. Winterblossom, tapping his morocco snuff-box with the sly look which intimated the coming of a good thing, was wont to say, that he had reversed the usual order of transformation, and was turned into a grub after having been a butterfly. After all, this narrowness, though a more ordinary modification of the spirit of avarice, may be founded on the same desire of acquisition, which in his earlier days sent him to ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... that get destroyed because of their unfitness. He also emphasized the number of adaptations which, if designed, would argue an evil rather than a good designer. Here all depends upon the point of view. To the grub under the bark the exquisite fitness of the woodpecker's organism to extract him would ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James

... further inquiry that the owner is no limited specialist, but a "handy man," bold, enterprising, resourceful, and good all round. He will not starve in the desert. No wholesome food comes amiss to him—grub, slug, or snail, fruit, eggs, a live mouse or a dead rat, and he can deal with them all. Such are the magpie, the crow, the jackdaw, and all of that ilk; and these are the birds that are found in all countries and climates, ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)

... a truer thing. But they were certainly a badly rattled crowd for a time. And we can hardly blame the poor fellows, for what could they think but that it was a tremendous bird of prey, looking them over with an eye to grub?" ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy


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