▪ I. grunt, n.
(grʌnt)
[f. grunt v.]
1. The characteristic low gruff sound made by a hog; a similar sound uttered by other animals.
| 1615 Chapman Odyss. x. 324 Swines snowts, swines bodies, tooke they, bristles, grunts. 1697 Dryden æneid vii. 20 The Grunts of Bristled Boars. 1820 Shelley Œdipus i. i. 95 Let me hear Their everlasting grunts and whines no more! 1859 Dickens T. Two Cities ii. v, With a deprecatory grunt, the jackal again complied. 1894 A. Robertson Nuggets, etc. 68 What can ye expec' frae a pig but a grunt. |
2. a. A similar sound, uttered by a human being; sometimes expressive of approbation, or the opposite. † In early use, a groan.
| 1553 Brende Q. Curtius x. 214 b, But he had not so sone dronke of Hercules cuppe, but that he gaue a grunte as thoughe he had bene striken to the harte. 1567 Turberv. Ovid's Ep., Hypermnestra to Lynceus 43 When..round about I heard Of dying men the grunts. 1774–77 Cook Voy. S. Pole, etc. iii. viii. II. 107 Two or three old men..giving a kind of grunt, significant, as I thought, of approbation. 1829 Lytton Devereux ii. iv, They raised the fallen watchman, who, after three or four grunts, began slowly to recover himself. 1865 Carlyle Fredk. Gt. iv. viii. (1872) II 16 The Britannic Majesty gave some grunt of acquiescence. 1899 Blackw. Mag. Oct. 453/1 He emitted only a sulky grunt. |
| transf. 1879 H. Drummond in Life (1899) 162 [The geyser] gave a grunt and then threw up a little water. |
b. U.S. slang. An infantry soldier.
| 1969 I. Kemp Brit. G.I. in Vietnam v. 106 The sound of..engines, among the most welcome of all music to the average infantryman—or ‘grunt’, as we were impolitely called—in Vietnam. 1970 Times 28 May 7/5 These luckless victims of the American military machine are known as ‘grunts’, a name said to be derived from their way of complaining as they trudge along the jungle trails. |
3. a. A name for American fishes of the genus Hæmulon and allied species (as Orthopristis chrysopterus). So called from the noise they make when taken.
Apparently not connected with Du. gront, grunt, which is a shortened form of grondel grundel, and denotes a different fish (Cyprinus gobio).
| 1713 Ray Synopsis Piscium 96 The Gray Grunt. 1725 Sloane Jamaica II. 291 Gray-Grunt. It was taken at Old Harbour. 1734 Mortimer in Phil. Trans. XXXVIII. 316 Perca marina capite striato. The Grunt. 1792 M. Riddell Voy. Madeira 69 The cobler-fish, the king-fish..the grunt, and the flying gurnard. 1884–5 Riverside Nat. Hist. (1888) III. 218 Grunt, pig-fish, and red-mouth, are the principal common names of the species of Hæmulon..Another fish, also called grunt and pig-fish..is the Orthopristis chrysopterus. 1885 C. F. Holder Marvels Anim. Life 176 Grunts that opened their wide mouths in audible protest. |
b. An English fish, ? the perch.
| 1851 Mrs. Browning Casa Guidi W. 78 The pool in front Wherein the hill-stream trout are cast to wait The beatific vision, and the grunt Used at refectory, keeps its weedy state. 1880 Antrim & Down Gloss., Grunt, a fish, the perch. |
[2.] [b.] Substitute for def.: Originally, a junior assistant to a worker on electricity or telephone lines (= ground-hog n. 3); hence, any unskilled or low-ranking assistant; a general dogsbody; (somewhat derog.) a labourer or proletarian, a nobody; spec. in N. Amer. Mil. slang, an infantryman, common soldier. colloq. (orig. and chiefly U.S.). (Further examples.)
| 1926 Amer. Speech I. 659/1 He must, in order to become a good lineman, start as a ‘grunt’ (ground man); later he will ‘win his spurs’ (become a pole hiker). Ibid. 659/2 Soon the linemen..order the grunts to slack the rope off so that they can take another hold on the wires. 1929 J. Riordan On the Make xiv. 288 As the knight had a squire, so the lineman had his ‘grunt’. 1941 Amer. Speech XVI. 166 Grunt, electrician's helper (Signal Corps). 1942 Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Slang §456/4 Common laborer,..grunt, grunter, heister, hefter, a workman who heaves or lifts. 1979 F. Pohl Jem xiv. 244 Two of her grunts were holding another while he vomited. 1985 New Yorker 29 Apr. 69/3 They worked for one of the fastest-growing banks in the country,..that had a long-distance sprinter—a wizard who had gone from grunt to senior executive vice-president in less than five years. |
4. attrib. in sense 2 b (freq. as grunt work), usu. designating a low-ranking but necessary occupation or task considered dull, menial, or undemanding. colloq.
| 1977 Fortune June 165/3 Those M.B.A.'s will spend two years or so in the bull pen crunching numbers and doing grunt work. They won't run deals themselves. 1983 G. Benford Against Infinity ii. vi. 80 As a boy he always drew more dull grunt labor than the men..and now it was pleasant to graduate up a notch and watch somebody else hustle at it. 1987 Business Rev. Weekly 2 Oct. 92/1 He took a job at Detroit law firm Clark, Klein, Winter, Parsons & Prewitt long enough to get bored with legal grunt work. 1990 Science 1 Jun. 1078/1 Using this model you can do the systematic, grunt science—the step by step things that have to be done to work out the best vaccine. |
▪ II. grunt, v.
(grʌnt)
Forms: 1 grunnęttan, 3, 5 grunten, 4–5 grunte, 5 gronte, grunton, 6 grunte, 6– grunt. pa. tense 3 gronte, grunte, 4 grunt(e, 5– grunted.
[OE. grunnęttan (= OHG., mod.G. grunzen), freq. of grunian (cf. MHG. grunnen) to grunt, an echoic formation parallel with L. grunnīre.]
1. intr. Of a hog: To utter its characteristic low gruff sound. Also of other animals and of persons (with conscious allusion to the pig): To utter a sound resembling this.
| c 725 Corpus Gloss. (Hessels) G. 173 Grunnire, grunnettan. 1297 R. Glouc. (Rolls) 4233 He vemde & grunte & stod aȝen as it were a strong bor. 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xviii. lxv. (1495) 820 The olde lyon resyth woodly on men and oonly gruntyth on wymmen, and resyth selde on chyldren but in grete hungre. c 1400 Mandeville (1839) xxvii. 274 In that Desert ben many wylde men..thei gronten, as Pygges. c 1440 J. Capgrave Life St. Kath. iv. 1481 Eke your goddis arn not soo goode as swyn—Thei can noȝt grunten whan hem eyleth ought. 1530 Palsgr. 576/2, I grunte, as a horse dothe whan he his spored. 1593 Nashe Christ's T. (1613) 101 As the Hogge is still grunting, digging, and wrooting in the mucke, so [etc.]. 1633 P. Fletcher Purple Is. vii. lxxxiii, Still did hunt..In his deep trough for swill..Gryll could but grunt. a 1740 Tickell Ep. to Gentl. Avignon 104 Thy brinded boars may slumber undismay'd, Or grunt secure beneath the chestnut shade. 1768 Beattie Minstrel i. lvi, Sneak with the scoundrel fox, or grunt with glutton swine. 1820 W. Irving Sketch Bk. II. 365 Sleek unwieldly porkers were grunting in the repose and abundance of their pens. 1831 [see grunter1 1 b]. 1865 Lecky Ration. I. 66 He told how an aged minister had been interrupted.. by a devil who was grunting behind him like a pig. 1893 Earl Dunmore Pamirs II. 192 Yaks grunted after the manner of their kind. |
† b. To groan. Obs.
| 1340–70 Alisaunder 388 For greefe of hur grim stroke grunt full many. 1494 Fabyan Chron. v. ciii. 78 Many knyghts vpon bothe parties lay slayne & gruntynge vpon the erthe. 1535 W. Marshall tr. Menandrinus' Def. Peace, To Bk., Those persones, I waraunt, aswell pleased shall be all. As wood Rome shall grunte, at the rubbynge on the gall. 1602 Shakes. Ham. iii. i. 77 Who would these Fardles beare To grunt and sweat vnder a weary life? |
2. To utter a similar sound, expressive of discontent, dissent, effort, fatigue, etc.; to grumble, murmur.
| c 1325 Body & Soul 104 in Map's Poems (Camden) 341 The bodi grunte and gon to seye, Gost, thou hast the wrong i-wis. 1548 Udall, etc. Erasm. Par. Luke v. 21–6 The Phariseis, they grunte and murmour, and haue enuy at hym. 1577–87 Holinshed Chron. III. 1156/1 Wherat Sir Henrie Benefield grunted, and was highlie offended. 1647 Trapp Comm. Matt. vi. 5 [Saul] grunts against himself because he [God] handles him nat after his own mind. 1705 Hickeringill Priest-cr. iv. (1721) 230 Not Priest-craft and Superstition, not grunting and groaning, and looking surly, and sighing. 1804 A. Wilson in Poems & Lit. Prose (1876) I. 114 Isaac grunting and lagging behind. 1890 Hall Caine Bondman II. ii, A pace or two behind came Chalse..grunting hoarsely in his husky throat. |
b. trans. To utter or express with a grunt; to breathe out with a grunt.
| 1613 Purchas Pilgrimage (1614) 331 A Bore..there fell downe dead of a wound which they gave him, grunting out his last gaspe. 1786 Burns Ordination xi, Learning, with his Greekish face, Grunts out some Latin ditty. 1787 ― Ded. G. Hamilton 63 Grunt up a solemn lengthen'd groan. 1840 Dickens Old C. Shop xv, Grunting their monotonous grumblings as they prowled about. 1875 Buckland Log-bk. 100 He only grunted his gratitude. |
† 3. a. trans. To grind (the teeth). b. intr. To grind with the teeth. Obs. (Cf. grind, grint.)
| 13.. Coer de L. 2107 He grunte his teeth. 1426 Lydg. De Guil. Pilgr. 10470 Grucchynge, he grunte wyth hys teth. 1483 Caxton Gold. Leg. 331 b/1 She..lost her speche & foomyd atte mouth lyke a bore & grunted her teeth to gydre merueylously. |