grue
/ɡɹuː/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 1.93 in modern English
5
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Any byproduct of a gruesome event, such as gore, viscera, entrails, blood and guts.
Uncountable
noun
A fictional man-eating predator that dwells in the dark.
adj
Of an object, green when first observed before a specified time or blue when first observed after that time.
adj
Of a single color inclusive of both green and blue as different shades, used in translations from languages such as Old Welsh and Old Chinese that did not always distinguish between green and blue.
Example Sentences
- "["]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.""
- "Upon all others the sight of Alison, were it but for a moment, cast a cold grue, not to be remembered without terror."
- "A Grue of Ice"
- "A cold grue went through me—I was unable to touch such a hand."
- "The butcher was covered in the accumulated grue of a hard day's work"
- "There was grue everywhere after the accident"
Etymology
From Middle English gruen, probably from Middle Low German gruwen or Middle Dutch gruwen (compare Dutch gruwen), both from Proto-Germanic *grūwijaną, perhaps ultimately an imitative derivative of Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰers- (“to bristle”), or instead from *gʰer- (“to rub, stroke, grind”).