Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To shiver; shudder; feel horror.
  • (impersonal) To pain; grieve.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb intransitive, archaic To be frightened; to shudder with fear.
  • noun A shiver, a shudder
  • noun A fictional predator that dwells in the dark.
  • noun Any byproduct of a gruesome event, i.e. gore, viscera, entrails, blood and guts.
  • adjective philosophy Of an object, green when first observed before a specified time or blue when first observed after that time.
  • adjective linguistics Green or blue, as a translation from languages such as Welsh that do not distinguish between these hues.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Back-formation from gruesome.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English gruen. Probably from Middle Low German gruwen or Middle Dutch gruwen (Dutch gruwen), both from Proto-Germanic *grūwijanan.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Probably from gruesome; first used in Jack Vance's Dying Earth universe, but popularized by the text-based computer game Zork (1980).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Blend of green and blue. Coined by Nelson Goodman to illustrate concepts in the philosophy of science.

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Examples

  • Knowing that exactly such a ruinous retaliation was coming-and to people she liked, or even loved-gave her what her father called the grue: a cold sense of oppressive horror, coiling through the blood.

    A Breath of Snow and Ashes Gabaldon, Diana 2005

  • The military men wade deeper in grue, following the discovery of a Special Forces commander whose squad has been picked off by particularly unstoppable foes – werewolves the size of minivans.

    Current Movie Reviews, Independent Movies - Film Threat 2002

  • “new riddle of induction”, commonly called the grue paradox, invites us to consider the predicate grue, which is true before time t only of objects that are green and after time

    The Frame Problem Shanahan, Murray 2004

  • Watch it for the grue, which is fantastically well-done (if hilariously improbable) and not for anything else - even the nudity is ruined by women turning into monsters.

    BeyondHollywood.com | Movie News, Reviews, and Opinions Gazz Ogden 2010

  • The grue is a sinister, lurking presence in the dark places of the earth.

    MetaFilter Projects 2008

  • He had turned a complete somersault in the water beneath us, giving us a "grue" as we reflected what would have happened had he then chosen to come bounding to the surface.

    The Cruise of the Cachalot Round the World After Sperm Whales Frank T. Bullen 1886

  • Drumsheugh was much shaken, and the sound of the Christian name, which he had not heard since his mother's death, gave him a "grue" (shiver), as if one had spoken from the other world.

    A Doctor of the Old School — Volume 4 Ian Maclaren 1878

  • Drumsheugh was much shaken, and the sound of the Christian name, which he had not heard since his mother's death, gave him a "grue"

    Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush Ian Maclaren 1878

  • Drumsheugh was much shaken, and the sound of the Christian name, which he had not heard since his mother's death, gave him a "grue" (shiver), as if one had spoken from the other world.

    A Doctor of the Old School — Complete Ian Maclaren 1878

  • I think his focus was more on Japan (eg the color "grue" reflecting their lack of differentiation between grey from blue) but I'm sure enough of it would have applied to

    TravelPod.com TravelStream™ — Recent Entries at TravelPod.com 2010

Comments

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  • The noise made by people feeling ill in children's comics in the 80's.

    EDIT: ignore the above! The word I was thinking of was the homonym groo.

    October 23, 2007

  • 'It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.' (Zork)

    Also a creation of Nelson Goodman. See also bleen.

    October 23, 2007

  • To expand, an object is grue if green and examined before time t, or blue and not examined before t.

    October 24, 2007

  • "Still in the grip of a cold grue, I swung around and strained my eyes ... half expecting to see the scene engraved on my memory materialize again out of darkness...."

    —Diana Gabaldon, Drums of Autumn (NY: Dell, 1997), 250

    January 19, 2010

  • n. That which one is likely to be eaten by

    April 16, 2015

  • "Although nutraloaf can be found in many United States prisons, its use is controversial. It was mentioned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1978 in Hutto v. Finney while ruling that conditions in the Arkansas penal system constituted cruel and unusual punishment. Prisoners were fed "grue", described as "a substance created by mashing meat, potatoes, margarine, syrup, vegetables, eggs, and seasoning into a paste and baking the mixture in a pan." The majority decision delivered by Justice Stevens upheld an order from the 8th Circuit Court that the grue diet be discontinued."

    -- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nutraloaf&oldid=658869419

    June 10, 2015

  • Tonight pay the devil his due

    And savor the witches' strange brew

    As bandits and zombies

    And other bad hombres

    Cause many a shriek and a grue.

    October 31, 2016