grunt
/ɡɹʌnt/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Northern England/ɡɹʊnt/
grunt noun: a short snorting sound, often to show disapproval, or used as a reply when one is reluctant to speak.
Noun
grunt (plural grunts)
- 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.1861, Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter X
- The snorting cry of a pig.
- Any fish of the perciform family Haemulidae.
- A person who does ordinary and boring work.
- An infantry soldier.
- The poges stare at the grunts as though the grunts were Hell's Angels at the ballet.1979, Gustav Hasford, The Short-Timers, New York: Bantam Books, published 1980, →ISBN, page 39
- The events described are those encountered by only 160 men, though the adversity recounted is representative of that experienced by all grunts in Vietnam.1984, Charles Robert Anderson, The Grunts, Berkley Books, →ISBN, page xii
- The amount of power of which a vehicle is capable.
- The engine might not possess quite as much grunt as the later 24v six, but it delivers invigorating performance […]1992, Autocar & Motor, volume 192, page 61
- With this much grunt, it is surprising that the engine is relatively quiet.2006 February, Torque, page 56
- A dessert of steamed berries and dough, usually blueberries; blueberry grunt.
Verb
grunt (third-person singular simple present grunts, present participle grunting, simple past and past participle grunted)
- To make a grunt or grunts.
- to grunt and sweat under a weary lifec. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
- The silhouette sharpens and fades as the carving is moved before the flames of the hearth, its maker grunts in perfect imitation of the ancestor - a human-lioness in oestrus.2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History, page 186
- To make a grunt or grunts.
- To break wind; to fart.
- Who just grunted?
grunt meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Malayalam
grunt in Hindi
- to grunt, groan
- काँखना kā̃khnā
grunt in Tamil
- உறுமல்
grunt in Urdu
- کراہنا
grunt in Malayalam
- to grunt, growl
- മുരടുക muraṭuka
- grunt, groan
- മൂളുക mūḷuka
More languagesFewer languages
- grunt in Kannada
- ಗುರ್ರೆನ್ನು
- grunt in Sanskrit
- गर्जन garjana
- grunt in Nepali
- ग्रुन्ट
- grunt in Tagalog
- gonggong
- grunt in Vietnamese
- ủn ỉn
Examples of grunt in a sentence
- He plans to hire somebody to do the grunt work of digging the trenches for the pipes.
- He just grunted in acknowledgment of my greeting.
- "Ooph!" Jeff grunted as I elbowed him in the rib.
Synonyms of grunt
Forms of grunt
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | grunts |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | grunts |
| present participle | grunting |
| past participle | grunted |
| past | grunted |
Origin of grunt
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.
Words formed from grunt
Words that rhyme with grunt
Questions about grunt
- What does grunt mean?
- Grunt means a short snorting sound, often to show disapproval, or used as a reply when one is reluctant to speak.
- What is grunt in Hindi?
- Grunt in Hindi is काँखना (kā̃khnā). See Grunt meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is grunt?
- Grunt can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce grunt?
- Grunt is pronounced /ɡɹʌnt/.
- What is the plural of grunt?
- The plural of grunt is grunts.
Words near grunt in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: grunt (page history and authors); काँखना (Hindi) (page history and authors); grunt (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); grunt (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); മുരടുക (Malayalam) (page history and authors); grunt (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); गर्जन (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); grunt (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-grunt.ogg.
Cite this entry: “grunt.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/grunt. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.