grunt

[ gruhnt ]

verb (used without object)

1. to utter the deep, guttural sound characteristic of a hog.
2. to utter a similar sound.
3. to grumble, as in discontent.

verb (used with object)

1. to express with a grunt.

noun

1. a sound of grunting.
2. New England Cooking. a dessert, typically of cherries, peaches, or apples sweetened and spiced, and topped with biscuit dough. pandowdy.
3. any food fish of the family Pomadasyidae (Haemulidae), found chiefly in tropical and subtropical seas, that emits grunting sounds.
4. Slang. a soldier, especially an infantryman.
5. Slang. a common or unskilled worker; laborer.

grunt

/ ɡrʌnt /

verb

1. intr (esp of pigs and some other animals) to emit a low short gruff noise
2. when tr, may take a clause as object to express something gruffly

   he grunted his answer

noun

1. the characteristic low short gruff noise of pigs, etc, or a similar sound, as of disgust
2. any of various mainly tropical marine sciaenid fishes, such as Haemulon macrostomum ( Spanish grunt ), that utter a grunting sound when caught
3. slang.
   an infantry soldier or US Marine, esp in the Vietnam War

Derived Forms

• ˈgruntingly, adverb

Other Words From

• grunting·ly adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of grunt¹

First recorded before 900; Middle English grunten, Old English grunnettan, frequentative of grunian “to grunt”; cognate with German grunzen, Latin grunnīre

Word History and Origins

Origin of grunt¹

Old English grunnettan, probably of imitative origin; compare Old High German grunnizōn, grunni moaning, Latin grunnīre

Example Sentences

During this time, bull elk vie for the attention of cows, piercing the mountain air with their signature bugles, grunts, chuckles, and screams.

From Outside Online

As Amanda Stent, an NLP expert for financial news and information service Bloomberg, explained, technologies like BERT are important because they remove a lot of the grunt work required to train a language model from scratch.

From Fortune

That’s when they saw there was an opportunity here to build a tool to track all of this information in one place and connect it to Salesforce to automate a lot of this grunt work.

From TechCrunch

The good news is that developing a successful digital marketing strategy is possible, and it doesn’t have to take grunt work or cost you more than a cup of coffee a day.

From Search Engine Watch

When Palantir built a new software platform, Foundry, in 2016, the company cut costs by automating much of the grunt work and said it reduced time to set up customers from months to days.

From Fortune

The grunt takes a hard look at our interpreter, rotates his M16 and opens the vehicle door, motioning for us to get out.

From The Daily Beast

The grunt asks us where we are going and we respond, “to the Korengal.”

From The Daily Beast

As a grunt, he lectured a high-ranking officer in protest of Marines who attacked a Vietnamese child.

From The Daily Beast

Fortunately, the Food Sense App for the iPhone does the grunt work for you.

From The Daily Beast

Piggy, saying nothing, with no time for even a grunt, traveled through the air sideways from the rock, turning over as he went.

From The Daily Beast

The noise of his slumbers culminated in a sudden, choking grunt, and abruptly ceased.

From Project Gutenberg

You must imagine this sound as something between a grunt and a groan, that the estimable lady gave vent to whenever put out.

From Project Gutenberg

His next line—'To grunt and sweat under a weary life'—resembles ll.

From Project Gutenberg

Up went the monster with a grunt, and a peculiar rigidity of body, which evidently betokened horror at his situation.

From Project Gutenberg

After they had passed, a lull fell on the scene, which was soon broken by the grunt and snort of a rhinoceros.

From Project Gutenberg