grumble

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“
Black bun: * grumble-grumble* "Ugh, why does that gray thing have to sit so close to me??"

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Definitions (21)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (5)

  1. intransitive verb To complain in a surly manner; mutter discontentedly: "The governed will always find something to grumble about” (Crane Brinton).
  2. intransitive verb To rumble or growl.
  3. transitive verb To express in a grumbling discontented manner: grumbled a rude response.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (7)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (3)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (6)

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Examples (50)

  • Black bun: * grumble-grumble* "Ugh, why does that gray thing have to sit so close to me??" —  Daily Bunny
  • All I hear is "grumble, grumble, hiss, hiss, grumble, poo." —  CNN Political Ticker
  • Scarcely a murmur or a grumble was heard. —  Hurricane Hurry
  • Waste of good cream and sugar So it went on--grumble, grumble, grumble, grum-- And that Rachel actually put her arm round his neck and kissed his cross red face It is not the tea that is bad, dear, it is your poor old foot. —  The Heart of Una Sackville
  • Therefore it behoves us to possess our souls in patience, and only to indulge at intervals in the right to grumble which is by virtue of tradition ours. —  Le Petit Nord or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Suggestions Wordniks Suggest

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

mutterings ·  rumbling ·  gurgle ·  wrangle ·  whimper ·  expletive ·  guffaw ·  rebuttal ·  mumble

Used in the same contextWord Family

grumble:   grumbled ·  grumbling ·  grumbles
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Probably Dutch grommelen, to mutter, from Middle Dutch, frequentative of grommen.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. With excrescent b, as in fumble, humble, etc. (= Old French grommeler, grumeler, groumeler, French grommeler), from Middle Dutch grommelen, murmur, mutter, grunt, = Low German grummeln (later German dial. grummeln), growl, mutter, as thunder; freq. of Middle Dutch grommen, murmur, mutter, grunt, Dutch grommen, grumble, growl, scold, = Low German grumen, *grummen, grumble, mutter (cf. German dial. (Bavarian) grumen, reflexive, fret oneself). The connection with grum, grim, etc., is doubtful.
  2. from grumble, v.
 

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/ˈgrəmbl/
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