grue
EnglishEdit
PronunciationEdit
Etymology 1Edit
From Middle English gruen, probably from Middle Low German gruwen or Middle Dutch gruwen (compare Dutch gruwen), both from Proto-Germanic *grūwijaną.
VerbEdit
grue (third-person singular simple present grues, present participle gruing, simple past and past participle grued)
- (intransitive, archaic) To be frightened; to shudder with fear.
- 1822, Sir Walter Scott, The Pirate, volume I, Philadelphia: H. C. Carey and I. Lea, pages 111–112:
- “It is seenteen hundred linen,” said the pedlar, giving a tweak to one of the shirts, in that knowing manner with which matrons and judges ascertain the texture of the loom ; “it’s seenteen hundred linen, and as strong as an it were dowlas. Nevertheless, mother, your bidding is to be done ; and I would have done Mr. Mordaunt’s bidding too,” he added, relaxing from his note of defiance, into the deferential whining tone with which he cajoled his customers, “if he hadna made use of profane oaths which made my very flesh grue, and caused me, in some sort, to forget myself.”
TranslationsEdit
NounEdit
grue (plural grues)
- A shiver, a shudder.
- 1921, John Buchan, The Path of the King, chapter 9
- There was a sharp grue of ice in the air.
- 1964, Geoffrey Jenkins, A Grue of Ice (title)
- 1921, John Buchan, The Path of the King, chapter 9
TranslationsEdit
Etymology 2Edit
Back-formation from gruesome.
NounEdit
grue (uncountable)
- Any byproduct of a gruesome event, such as gore, viscera, entrails, blood and guts.
- The butcher was covered in the accumulated grue of a hard day's work
- There was grue everywhere after the accident
- 1958, Samuel Youd, writing as John Christopher, The Caves of Night
- 'I've told you - it wasn't much. He tried to kiss me.' She smiled slightly. 'Just after he had shown me the family skeletons.' / 'What a lovely bit of grue!'
- 1996, Linda Badley, Writing Horror and the Body [1]
- Carrie is Cinderella in the body language of menstrual blood and raging hormones. King’s adolescent joy in grimaces and groans, the Mad magazine humor, and the staple of “grue” hardly need mentioning.
- 2002, Carole Nelson Douglas, Chapel Noir [2]
- “[...] She is quite agreeable to gruesome ghost stories, but appalled by the lust for life.” / “I admit that I am surprised by how well she handles sheer grue, better than I.”
- 2004, Talbot Mundy, Guns of the Gods [3]
- “This is the grue,” said Dick, holding his lantern high. / Its light fell on a circle of skeletons, all perfect, each with its head toward a brass bowl in the center.
Etymology 3Edit
Probably from gruesome; first used in Jack Vance's Dying Earth universe in the 1940s, but popularized by the text-based computer game Zork in 1980.
NounEdit
grue (plural grues)
- A fictional man-eating predator that dwells in the dark.
- 1981, Byte magazine (volume 6):
- I managed to get into the house through the front once, but I was plunged into darkness and eaten by a monster called a grue.
- 2009, "Jas", Hazadous [sic] Australian animals the GRUE.... your guide (on Internet newsgroup rec.travel.australia+nz)
- To find a grue, turn off the light at night, or go for a walk in a dark place (but carry a flashlight with you).
- 2004, "M.D. Dollahite", How would you imagine a grue? (on Internet newsgroup rec.games.int-fiction)
- Incidentally, the best official text description I know of is in Sorcerer, when you actually become a grue and visit a grue colony. IIRC, even that description is vague, but does cannonize[sic] that they are large four-legged reptiles.
- 1981, Byte magazine (volume 6):
Etymology 4Edit
Blend of green + blue. Coined by Nelson Goodman to illustrate concepts in the philosophy of science.
AdjectiveEdit
grue (not comparable)
- (philosophy) Of an object, green when first observed before a specified time or blue when first observed after that time.
- 1965, Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction and Forecast,
- The grue property is defined as: x is grue if and only if x is green and is observed before the year 2000, or x is blue and is not observed before the year 2000.
- 2007, Michael Clark, Paradoxes from A to Z:
- The unexamined emeralds cannot be both green and grue, since if they are grue and unexamined they are blue.
- 1965, Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction and Forecast,
- (linguistics) Green or blue, as a translation from languages such as Welsh that do not distinguish between these hues.
TranslationsEdit
Etymology 5Edit
NounEdit
grue (uncountable)
See alsoEdit
AnagramsEdit
FrenchEdit
EtymologyEdit
According to the TLFi, an early borrowing from Vulgar Latin or Late Latin *grua, from Latin grūs, gruem.
PronunciationEdit
NounEdit
grue f (plural grues)
- crane (bird)
- crane (machine)
- (colloquial) prostitute, hooker
Derived termsEdit
Further readingEdit
- “grue” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).
AnagramsEdit
InterlingueEdit
NounEdit
grue (plural grues)
- crane (animal)
LatinEdit
NounEdit
grue
Norwegian BokmålEdit
Etymology 1Edit
From Middle Low German [Term?], related to gruve (“mine”) and grav (“grave”).
NounEdit
grue f or m (definite singular grua or gruen, indefinite plural gruer, definite plural gruene)
SynonymsEdit
Etymology 2Edit
From Low German gruwen.
VerbEdit
grue (present tense gruer, simple past grua or gruet or grudde, past participle grua or gruet or grudd)
- To be queasy or nervous in anticipation of something.
- Han gruet for morgendagen.
- He was queasy about the following day.
- Han grudde seg til tannlegen.
- He was queasy about [the coming visit to] the dentist.
Usage notesEdit
Can be used electively with the reflexive pronoun seg.
ReferencesEdit
- “grue” in The Bokmål Dictionary.
Norwegian NynorskEdit
EtymologyEdit
From Middle Low German [Term?], related to gruve (“mine”) and grav (“grave”).
PronunciationEdit
NounEdit
grue f (definite singular grua, indefinite plural gruer, definite plural gruene)
ReferencesEdit
- “grue” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.