grunt

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To utter a deep guttural sound, as a hog does.
2. v. To utter a sound similar to a grunt, as in disgust.
3. v. To utter or express with a deep guttural sound: He merely grunted his approval.
4. n. A deep guttural sound.
5. n. Any of various chiefly tropical marine fishes of the family Haemulidae that, upon removal from the water, produce grunting sounds by rubbing together tooth plates in the throat.
6. n. Slang An infantryman in the U.S. military, especially in the Vietnam War: "They were called grunts....They were the infantrymen, the foot soldiers of the war” ( Bernard Edelman).
7. n. Slang One who performs routine or mundane tasks.
8. n. New England A dessert made by stewing fruit topped with pieces of biscuit dough, which steam as the fruit cooks. Also called slump.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To make a guttural noise, as a hog; also, to utter short or broken groans, as from eagerness or over-exertion.
2. n. A deep guttural sound, as that made by a hog.
3. n. A fish of the family Hæmulonidæ, as those of the genera Hœmulon and Orthopristis: so called from the noise they make when hauled out of the water. Also called pig-fish and growler for the same reason. See redmouth.
4. n. Among the various fishes of the genus Hæmulon and family Hæmulidæ, so named, are the following: Black grunt, Hæmulon bonariense; boar-grunt, H. sciurus; French grunt, H. flavolineatum; gray grunt, H. macrostomum; grunt blackfish, H. bonariense (See blackfish); Margaret grunt, H. album; open-mouthed grunt (same as French grunt); red-mouthed grunt, Bathystoma rimator; striped grunt, Hæmulon macrostomum; white grunt, Bathystoma striatus (see also capeuna); yellow grunt (same as boargrunt).

Wiktionary

1. n. A short, snorting sound, often to show disapproval, or used as a reply when one is reluctant to speak.
2. n. The snorting cry of a pig.
3. n. A family of Perciformes fish of the family Haemulidae
4. n. Army and United States Marine Corps slang An infantry soldier. (From the sound he presumably makes when shouldering a pack before starting a road march.)
5. v. intransitive Of a person: To make a grunt or grunts.
6. v. intransitive Of a pig: To make a grunt or grunts.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. To make a deep, short noise, as a hog; to utter a short groan or a deep guttural sound.
2. n. A deep, guttural sound, as of a hog.
3. n. (Zoöl.) Any one of several species of American food fishes, of the genus Hæmulon, allied to the snappers, as, the black grunt (A. Plumieri), and the redmouth grunt (H. aurolineatus), of the Southern United States; -- also applied to allied species of the genera Pomadasys, Orthopristis, and Pristopoma. Called also pigfish, squirrel fish, and grunter; -- so called from the noise it makes when taken.
4. n. slang A U. S. infantryman; -- used especially of those fighting in the war in Vietnam.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. medium-sized tropical marine food fishes that utter grunting sounds when caught
2. n. an unskilled or low-ranking soldier or other worker
3. n. the short low gruff noise of the kind made by hogs
4. v. issue a grunting, low, animal-like noise