grubby
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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“It’s not even a business for me,” Ivanka claimed on that podcast about her island project—but it certainly will be for some, and likely a grubby one.
From Slate ● Sep. 8, 2026
The floor was so grubby that the thought of sitting anywhere on it was nauseating — and regardless, the lanes were now too dark for reading, lit primarily by bright neon stripes and squiggles.
From Salon ● Jul. 3, 2026
He said he had been "easily bought" and "accepted the job as you had accepted other grubby little tasks".
From BBC ● Jun. 19, 2026
In Mohit’s telling, Laxman seems merely grubby and small-minded.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 11, 2026
Bod could not imagine hugging Silas, so he held out his hand and Silas bent over and gently shook it, engulfing Bod’s small, grubby hand with his huge, pale one.
From "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaiman
Brazil’s slower pace of life also appeals to migrants such as Rogelio Naranjo, who works in a Cuban barbershop on the grubbier outskirts of Curitiba.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
As the name suggests, From The Pyre is darker, grubbier, more gothically grandiose than their critically acclaimed debut, Prelude To Ecstasy.
From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2025
After picking up trash on Earth Day, I suggest a grubbier summation: We are what we toss.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 30, 2023
By the early 1960s, the crowds were seedier, the clubs grubbier and the production all but gone.
From New York Times ● Jun. 29, 2022
It could hardly have been grubbier if he had first rubbed his hands in the earth, and then had a good cry, and then dried his face with his hands.
From "The Magician's Nephew" by C. S. Lewis
His passion for theater, from its grubbiest particulars to its headiest heights, is the thread that binds together a slightly miscellaneous collection.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 27, 2021
The final reason practical effects are hip again is the grubbiest: they’re a piece of the swag we call “fan service.”
From The New Yorker ● Jan. 20, 2016
Sean Ingle dons his grubbiest Columbo mac to investigate.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 1, 2010
"He went to the grubbiest children and hugged and kissed them."
From Time Magazine Archive
When I was a tiny child my greatest desire was to play with all the grubbiest children in the parks.
From Antony Gray,—Gardener by Leslie Moore
Vocabulary lists containing grubby
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
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Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
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The Magician's Nephew
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