Library / English Dictionary

GRUNT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Medium-sized tropical marine food fishes that utter grunting sounds when caught

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("grunt" is a kind of...):

percoid; percoid fish; percoidean (any of numerous spiny-finned fishes of the order Perciformes)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "grunt"):

Haemulon album; margate (a grunt with a red mouth that is found from Florida to Brazil)

Haemulon macrostomum; Spanish grunt (a kind of grunt)

Haemulon aurolineatum; tomtate (found off the West Indies and Florida)

cottonwick; Haemulon malanurum (of warm Atlantic waters)

Haemulon parra; sailor's-choice; sailors choice (a grunt found from Florida to Brazil and Gulf of Mexico)

Anisotremus virginicus; pork-fish; porkfish (black and gold grunt found from Bermuda to Caribbean to Brazil)

Anisotremus surinamensis; black margate; pompon (dusky grey food fish found from Louisiana and Florida southward)

hogfish; Orthopristis chrysopterus; pigfish (found from Long Island southward)

Holonyms ("grunt" is a member of...):

family Haemulidae; Haemulidae (grunts)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The short low gruff noise of the kind made by hogs

Synonyms:

grunt; oink

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Hypernyms ("grunt" is a kind of...):

noise (sound of any kind (especially unintelligible or dissonant sound))

Derivation:

grunt (issue a grunting, low, animal-like noise)

Sense 3

Meaning:

An unskilled or low-ranking soldier or other worker

Example:

he went from grunt to chairman in six years

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("grunt" is a kind of...):

unskilled person (a person who lacks technical training)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Issue a grunting, low, animal-like noise

Example:

He grunted his reluctant approval

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Hypernyms (to "grunt" is one way to...):

emit; let loose; let out; utter (express audibly; utter sounds (not necessarily words))

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s that CLAUSE

Derivation:

grunt (the short low gruff noise of the kind made by hogs)

grunter (domestic swine)

grunter (a person who grunts)

Credits

 Context examples: 

The boar, however, had not quite hidden himself, for his ears stuck out of the bush; and when he shook one of them a little, the cat, seeing something move, and thinking it was a mouse, sprang upon it, and bit and scratched it, so that the boar jumped up and grunted, and ran away, roaring out, Look up in the tree, there sits the one who is to blame.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Holmes grunted from the sofa.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There was something horrible in the ferocious energy of Berks’s hitting, every blow fetching a grunt from him as he smashed it in, and after each I gazed at Jim, as I have gazed at a stranded vessel upon the Sussex beach when wave after wave has roared over it, fearing each time that I should find it miserably mangled.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A condition of the newborn marked by dyspnea with cyanosis, heralded by such prodromal signs as dilatation of the alae nasi, expiratory grunt, and retraction of the suprasternal notch or costal margins, mostly frequently occurring in premature infants, children of diabetic mothers, and infants delivered by cesarean section, and sometimes with no apparent predisposing cause.

(Neonatal Respiratory Distress Syndrome, NLM, Medical Subject Headings)

"Yes," Beauty Smith grunted, shrinking away.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

And each time Zilla had looked sourer than ever and grunted more contemptuously.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

But merchants and traders are cowardly rulers at best; they grunt and grub all their days in the trough of money-getting, and I have swung back to aristocracy, if you please.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Silver hobbled, grunting, on his crutch; his nostrils stood out and quivered; he cursed like a madman when the flies settled on his hot and shiny countenance; he plucked furiously at the line that held me to him and from time to time turned his eyes upon me with a deadly look.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Sick as he was, Dave resented being taken out, grunting and growling while the traces were unfastened, and whimpering broken-heartedly when he saw Sol-leks in the position he had held and served so long.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Again that worthy grunted.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)