Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use grubby in a sentence

18 example sentences · adjective, noun

Grubby means dirty, unwashed, unclean. Example: “He's a grubby little boy, always playing around by the stream.”

Examples of grubby by meaning

adjectiveDirty, unwashed, unclean.

  • He's a grubby little boy, always playing around by the stream.

adjectiveHaving grubs in it.

  • The average devaluation on grubby cattle is from 25 cents to one dollar per cwt.1944, National Live Stock Loss Prevention Board, Report, page 694

More sentences with grubby

  • Get your grubby paws off my things!From the entry paw
  • Though I knew we shouldn't be there, she pulled me out of the tunnel and into the dark layup, its floors still grubby from the morning commute many hours ago.From the entry layup
  • A grubby, shirtless guy in sweatpants and bare feet rushed out of the building.2015, Janey Mack, Time’s Up, Kensington Books, →ISBN, page 114. From the entry Nike
  • He was wearing a grubby white shirt, jeans and scuffed black slip-on shoes.2014 January 16, Veronica Henry, Love on the Rocks, London: Orion, →ISBN, →OCLC, →ISBN. From the entry on the breadline
  • A greedy grin etched itself upon the lad’s grubby face.2015, L.J. Oliver, The Humbug Murders, Pocket Books, →ISBN, page 134. From the entry 'spectable
  • His banky, the grubby woollen blanket that he carried with him everywhere, was draped over the rest of his bedclothes.2013, Kate Thompson, The Missing Link, page 6. From the entry banky
  • The number of takeouts that have grubby floors is astonishing.2009 October 4, hellicopter, “Land tax will do little”, in nz.general (Usenet). From the entry takeout
  • He wore frayed khaki shorts, calf-high reefwalkers with tabi toes, and a grubby yellow t-shirt imprinted dalriada windsurfer racing team.1984, Julian May, The Adversary (Saga of Pliocene Exile; 4), Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, →ISBN, page 187. From the entry reefwalker
  • I dial from Highgate Hill an imagine him sittin in his grubby office in an industrial depot wedge between Beckton an Creekmouth.2001, Nick Barlay, Hooky Gear, London: Sceptre, →ISBN, page 13. From the entry sched
  • It was clad in white in the manner of an Indian sadu or holy man, and it was walking barefoot on the grubby pavements.1983, Lawrence Durrell, Sebastian (Avignon Qutet), Faber & Faber, published 2004, page 994. From the entry sadhu
  • He was clad in a shabby khaki-drill suit and grubby panama and sandshoes, and wore neither socks nor shirt, and was unshaven.1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter III, in Capricornia, page 36. From the entry sandshoe
  • Sort of elephanty eyes in a wrinkled old face, with short grey hair, a grubby safari shirt and a leathery wide-brimmed hat that looks a hundred years old.2014, David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks, Sceptre, →ISBN. From the entry elephanty
  • 'Here's your lollies,' she says holding out the grubby packet of lovehearts, Maura's share of the two shillings' worth they had bought with the money from the Barnardos box.2001, Fiona Farrell, The Skinny Louie Book. From the entry love heart
  • Ever since their creation the Daleks have been attempting to conquer and enslave as much of the universe as they could get their grubby little protuberances on.1989, Ben Aaronovitch, Remembrance of the Daleks. From the entry protuberance
  • The race will go to the strong, the clean in mind and in body; not to the bent, the pimpled, the grubby apostles of the seedy status quo.1967 January 26, Sten Overlach, “Le Dauphin”, in Sandy Gage, editor, McGill Daily, volume 56, number 67, Montreal, Que.: Students’ Society…. From the entry pamby
  • Miss Dru, in old-style calicoes and ginghams, felt grubby beside the dudes and dudesses who galloped over from near-by ranches to the Arizona location where the picture was being shot.1947 July 26, Jim Marshall, “Glamor Hits the Range”, in Walter Davenport, editor, Collier’s, volume 120, number 4, Springfield, Oh.: The…. From the entry near-by

Meaning of grubby

  1. adjective Dirty, unwashed, unclean.
  2. adjective Disreputable, sordid.
  3. adjective Having grubs in it.

Full definition of grubby

Questions about grubby in a sentence

How do you use grubby in a sentence?
Grubby is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “He's a grubby little boy, always playing around by the stream.”
What is a short sentence with grubby?
“Get your grubby paws off my things!”
What does grubby mean?
Grubby means dirty, unwashed, unclean.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: grubby (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this page: “How to use grubby in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/grubby. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.