Word.ws English Dictionary

grunt work

US/ɡɹʌ̃nʔwɝk/

grunt work noun: work (especially that which is heavy, repetitive or mindless) that is considered undesirable and therefore delegated to underlings.

Noun

grunt work (uncountable)

  1. (idiomatic) Work (especially that which is heavy, repetitive or mindless) that is considered undesirable and therefore delegated to underlings.
    • He plans to hire somebody to do the grunt work of digging the trenches for the pipes.
    • She has not only participated in the left as a star, even though she came into the role quite young. When Holly was between entertainment jobs, she volunteered for grunt work in anti-war organizations.1990 December 9, Maida Tilchen, “Closer To Near”, in Gay Community News, volume 18, number 21, page 14

Origin of grunt work

From the verb grunt.

Questions about grunt work

What does grunt work mean?
Grunt work means work (especially that which is heavy, repetitive or mindless) that is considered undesirable and therefore delegated to underlings.
What part of speech is grunt work?
Grunt work is a noun.
How do you pronounce grunt work?
Grunt work is pronounced /ɡɹʌ̃nʔwɝk/ (US).

Words near grunt work in the dictionary

  1. Grunsky
  2. Grunskys
  3. Grunspan
  4. grunt
  5. grunt level
  6. grunt work
  7. grunt-horn
  8. grunt-horns
  9. grunt-level
  10. grunted
  11. grunter

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: grunt work (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-grunt work.ogg.

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