grub
/ɡɹʌb/noun, verb
grub is spelled G-R-U-B: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 1.3 times per million words in written English, the 24,745th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, grub means “An insect, especially a beetle, at an immature stage of its life cycle” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of grub is grubs.
How many letters and syllables are in grub?
| Letters | 4: G-R-U-B |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.3 times per million words; the 24,745th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is grub?
Grub appears 1.3 times per million words in written English, the 24,745th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce grub?
- /ɡɹʌb/
- /ɡɹʊb/
Grub has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: EN-AU_ck1_grub.ogg, En-us-grub.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with grub?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as grub.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: burg.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of grub
- grubs plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- grubbing participle, present
- grubbed participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does grub mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
An insect, especially a beetle, at an immature stage of its life cycle.
- 2
slangFood.
pub grub
- 3
AustraliaslangA dirty person.
- 4
AustraliaslangA despicable person; a lowlife.
- 5
obsoleteA short, thick man; a dwarf.
verb
- 1
To scavenge or in some way scrounge, typically for food.
- 2
To dig; to dig up by the roots; to root out by digging; often followed by up.
to grub up trees, rushes, or sedge
- 3
datedslangTo supply with food.
- 4
datedslangTo eat.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Grub in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | larve , bouffe |
| German | Larve, Wurm , Fressalien, Futter, Mampf |
| Portuguese | larva , gororoba |
| Spanish | larva, verme , manduca, manducatoria, condumio, papeo |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does grub come from?
From Middle English grubben, grobben, from Old English *grubbian, from Proto-West Germanic *grubb-, from Proto-Germanic *grubb- (compare Middle Dutch grobben (“to scrape, scramble, grab”), Old High German grubilōn (“to dig, search”), German grübeln (“to meditate, ponder”)), from Proto-Germanic *grub- (“to dig”) (see *grabaną). The noun sense of "larva" is from Middle English grub, grubbe, grobbe, crubbe and may derive from the notion of "digging insect" from the verb above, or from the uncertainly related Middle English grub (“dwarfish fellow”). Compare West Frisian krobbe (“beetle”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).