Word.ws English Dictionary

grindhouse

grindhouse noun: a low-budget film theater that shows primarily exploitation films.

Noun

grindhouse (plural grindhouses)

  1. (US) A low-budget film theater that shows primarily exploitation films
    • 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.2007 April 10, Dave Kehr, “New DVDs”, in New York Times

Forms of grindhouse

pluralgrindhouses
alternative formgrind house
alternative formgrind-house

Origin of grindhouse

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.

Questions about grindhouse

What does grindhouse mean?
Grindhouse means a low-budget film theater that shows primarily exploitation films.
What part of speech is grindhouse?
Grindhouse is a noun.
What is the plural of grindhouse?
The plural of grindhouse is grindhouses.

Words near grindhouse in the dictionary

  1. Grindes
  2. grindest
  3. grindeth
  4. Grindheim
  5. Grindheims
  6. grindhouse
  7. grindhouses
  8. grindie
  9. grindier
  10. grindiest
  11. grindin'

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: grindhouse (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “grindhouse.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/grindhouse. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.