grubby

/ˈgrʌbi/

Other forms: grubbiest; grubbier

Grubby things are really dirty, like your little sister's grubby hands after she's spent an afternoon making mud pies.

Have you ever seen a little kid eat a chocolate ice cream cone on a hot day? Picture the kid's face covered in chocolate and you'll have a good idea of what grubby means! This adjective dates back to the mid-19th century, from grub, which means "insect larva" and which was once colloquially used to mean "dirty child."

Definitions of grubby

1. adjective

   thickly covered with ingrained dirt or soot
   “grubby little fingers”

   synonyms: begrimed, dingy, grimy, grungy, raunchy

   dirty, soiled, unclean

   soiled or likely to soil with dirt or grime
2. adjective

   infested with grubs
3. noun

   small sculpin of the coast of New England
   synonyms: Myxocephalus aenaeus

   type of:

   sculpin

   any of numerous spiny large-headed usually scaleless scorpaenoid fishes with broad mouths