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Grub   Listen
noun
Grub  n.  
1.
(Zool.) The larva of an insect, especially of a beetle; called also grubworm. See Illust. of Goldsmith beetle, under Goldsmith. "Yet your butterfly was a grub."
2.
A short, thick man; a dwarf. (Obs.)
3.
Victuals; food. (Slang)
Grub ax or Grub axe, a kind of mattock used in grubbing up roots, etc.
Grub breaker. Same as Grub hook (below).
Grub hoe, a heavy hoe for grubbing.
Grub hook, a plowlike implement for uprooting stumps, breaking roots, etc.
Grub saw, a handsaw used for sawing marble.
Grub Street, a street in London (now called Milton Street), described by Dr. Johnson as "much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems, whence any mean production is called grubstreet." As an adjective, suitable to, or resembling the production of, Grub Street. "I 'd sooner ballads write, and grubstreet lays."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Grub" Quotes from Famous Books



... something by way of an economic basis for good citizenship, too much must not be expected of it alone. For if vocational efficiency be created and released in an environment devoid of civic idealism it will never pass beyond the grub stage. It will merely fatten a low order of life, and this at the expense of much that would otherwise lend verdure and freshness, shade, flower, and fruit to the garden of our common life. The able man or the rich man is not necessarily ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben

... Occasional Writer. The journal carried on a political war against Walpole's administration, and endeavoured to bring about the establishment of a new party, to consist of Tories and the Whigs who could not agree with Walpole's methods. Caleb D'Anvers was a mere name for a Grub Street hack who was supposed to be the writer. But Walpole had no difficulty in recognizing the hand of Bolingbroke, and his reply to the first number of the Occasional Writer ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... journey up into the mountains, but left supplies at a given spot in the lower pastures, or met some of the party half-way and delivered over the provisions. If the rations were left it fell to the lot of one of the campers on the upper range to ride down on the pony and bring back "the grub," as Sandy called it. Once when Mr. Clark went down it was only to find that the supplies had been scented out by a bear and dragged away; in consequence the party on the mountain were forced to get on without bread or fresh provisions until the ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett

... our preparations for Hunting Island. It was a fine day, wind east, and rather warm. We had four negro oarsmen. Seven white folks made up the load, including Mr. Eustis. We landed on the Island just as G.'s boat did. After unloading our grub and firing off our guns to dry them and let the deer know that we were coming, we scattered about in various directions in search of game. I then went to see the ruins of the lighthouse in the middle of the point, a few rods from each beach. It was a brick structure and must have been ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various

... stream that further up country was to be pent between walls and prisoned to make a reservoir. Sitting there, we gazed upon the soft yet glowing beauty of it all, with never a thought of pick and spade, grub axe or crowbar, to pry between the rocks of the knoll to find the depth or quality of its soil or test ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright

... to try and break a shoulder-blade with the flat of his hand, just to show his appreciation of such friendship. "Bill Wilson has got enough gold that he pulled out of the crowd for us yesterday to grub-stake us for a good long while, and—I can't get out of this valley a minute too soon to suit me," he confessed. "You go on and hunt up Don Andres, while I tackle Solano. I'll wait for you—but don't ask me to stay till after dinner, because ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower

... mirror draped in cypress, saying, "Look into that. You are slow at understanding certain matters, Ralph. Not seen the whole of your noble self in a glass for two years? Neither have I. And it hasn't dawned upon you that you came out in the transition stage—a grub, or shall we say a chrysalis? No, don't wrinkle your forehead; it's only an allegory. Now you have come ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... ought to do more. I'll tell you what I'll do. You are planning to put a ring fence around your land,—three miles in all. I'll plough the whole business and fit it for the seed. I'll take one of my men, four horses, and a grub plough, and do ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter

... up. Her insistent stare disconcerted him. A dog was prowling among the grub-sacks. He would drive it away and place them into safety against Fairfax's return. But Thom stretched out a detaining hand and stood ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London

... he had been condemned by his inheritance from a wild and profligate father. Whether that fever had run its natural course or whether as David himself believed, he had been rescued by an act of divine intervention, it is certain that the change was as actual as that which takes place when a grub becomes a butterfly. It was equally certain that from this time onward it was the mental and spiritual characteristics of his mother which manifested themselves in ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss

... his trips west he fell in with an old mountaineer named Kieser, Tad Kieser. Tad became interested in his roasting machine, and they decided to locate claims together. Tad was to put up the 'grub stakes,' as they called it, for your father had no money except his salary. All one fall, when he was not installing machinery, they explored the mountains south of Colorado Springs, especially along the old Stage Road to Cripple Creek, looking for suitable ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley

... of the first white man, famine loomed black and gloomy over the land. It was chronic with the Indians and Eskimos; it became chronic with the gold hunters. It was ever present, and so it came about that life was commonly expressed in terms of "grub"—was measured by cups of flour. Each winter, eight months long, the heroes of the frost faced starvation. It became the custom, as fall drew on, for partners to cut the cards or draw straws to determine which should hit the hazardous trail for salt water, and which should remain and ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... body want to breathe for?" Dixie asked him, sharply, "or own the duds on your back, or the grub you eat? Why, it is simply to be independent. I wouldn't quake and shiver every time that old man meets me if I wasn't in his clutch. I ain't afraid of anybody else, but I am of him, and why? Because he's got me where he can ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben

... a master a good home these days. That's a Winton carpet in the saloon," declared the mate, with pride. "And we've got a one-eyed cook who can certainly sling grub together. Yes, for a cheap vacation I dun'no' but a schooner is ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... publisher may be born into the world, and he may give Englishmen a trustworthy edition, at a fair price, of the works of England's greatest musician. Meantime, the reader must do as the writer did for some years—he must grub and laboriously copy in the British Museum, buying, when he can, the seventeenth-century edition of Dioclesian and the eighteenth-century editions of such works as The Tempest and The Indian ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman

... to be noted concerning that popular and scathing personage Mr Pasquin. By May the company styled themselves "Pasquin's Company of Comedians"; a fresh indication of the credit attaching to the performance. In the previous month a contributor to The Grub Street Journal tells "Dear Grub" that he has seen Pope applauding the piece; and, although the statement was promptly denied, a rare print by Hogarth lends some colour to a very likely story; for the great Mr Pope, the terror of his enemies, the autocrat of literature, was warmly ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... somebody from that private car didn't saunter in t' look us four fools over! Wayland man, we won it all, th' doctor an' me! Th' other two wanted to play on their watches, they wud a' pawned th' clothes off their backs; but we wouldn't let them! We gave 'em back enough to grub stake 'em back to their job! Then some one says, th' vera words: A can hear them yet, 'Let's go across an' hear those damned evangelists: there's a white faced whiskers, an' a little clean shaved jumpin' jack skippin' all over the backs o' the church seats pretendin' ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... no place for a poor man, although when we were there five dollars a day (and all found) could be easily earned on the Creeks. I invariably found men connected with large companies enthusiastic, and grub-stakers down on their luck. Lack of water in this district has proved a stumbling block which will shortly be dispelled by machinery. Anvil Creek will probably yield double the output hitherto extracted when this ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt

... you are ready, watch the guide adjust the much-lightened pack, for the supply of "grub" is getting low; perhaps assist him swing the packs on the packsaddle, put on the canvas covering and throw the "diamond hitch," and then saddle your own horse—for by now you will have begun to feel some ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James

... heart of country rock to no profit, hoping, burrowing, and hoping. These men go harmlessly mad in time, believing themselves just behind the wall of fortune—most likable and simple men, for whom it is well to do any kindly thing that occurs to you except lend them money. I have known "grub stakers" too, those persuasive sinners to whom you make allowances of flour and pork and coffee in consideration of the ledges they are about to find; but none of these proved so much worth while as the Pocket Hunter. He wanted nothing of you and maintained a cheerful preference for his own way ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin

... to Milton Street (as it is now called), through which we walked for a very excellent reason; for this is the veritable Grub Street, where my literary kindred of former times used to congregate. It is still a shabby-looking street, with old-fashioned houses, and inhabited chiefly by people of the poorer classes, though not by authors. Next we went to Old Broad Street, and, being joined by Mr. B———, we ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... in, and says I, 'Beg your pardon, Mr. Longfellow, if you'll be so kind as to hold your yawp for about five minutes and let me get this grub ready, you'll do me proud.' Well, sir, after they'd filled up I set out the jug. Mr. Holmes looks at it and then he fires up all ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... wired him, she must be loaded to the muzzle with good things to eat and drink, for I told him to fill her up with the best to be had in New York City. So if any of the fellows are hankering for a change of grub, all they've got to do is to catch a fever or a Mauser bullet, and apply for a berth on the Nun. For my own part I prefer hardtack, bacon, and good health; but then tastes ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe

... road lay through March and Ely to Newmarket and Colchester, and I wouldn't believe the boys who called to me that I'd be stopped; but sure enough, not two miles east of Peterboro' the road slid under water and people were punting themselves about on doors, and cooking their grub upstairs. In the fields the hay-cocks and corn-ricks were just showing themselves above the water. It made one's heart ache for the farmers. Well, I turned back, of course, and took the London road to Huntingdon, which runs high all the way to Alconbury. ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... "That evenin' over their grub Enright an' Peets discusses the business. Thar's a jimcrow Mexican plaza not three miles off in the hills. Both of 'em is aware of this hamlet, an' Peets, partic'lar, is well acquainted with a old Mexican sharp who lives thar—he's a kind o' schoolmaster among 'em—who's mighty cunnin' ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis

... Well, one was being second-assistant engineer on a government collier from the Philippines with a denaturalized skipper, and for purser a slick up-state New Yorker; and both of 'em at the old game—grafting off the grub allowance. And that's bad." ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly

... or any respect for life? You don't know what these people are you've come amongst! Come with me now to my place; rest the night, and refresh yourself: tomorrow morning your Abban will come and conduct you safely on your way." This was a climax to the day's journey; the men smelt grub in an instant, and hurried off with the old lady to some empty stone enclosures (sheepfolds), and at once unburdened and "lay-to" for the night. As before, I had many conferences about the THE WADI ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... Bud. "But there's mother in the door now, and I can smell grub. She'll be surprised to ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker

... wants a bath, there's the river, all full o' 'gators and cattawampuses and things. And if ye eat, I s'pose ye rustle yer own grub and pay for eatin' it off that slab table there. There's jest one thing ye can say for this dump—a feller can spit on the floor. But with all them cracks in it he might not hit it, at that. Mother of mine! To think Missus Ryan's li'l' boy should ever git caught stayin' in a hole like ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... little man, stockish, oily, and red in the face, a jaunty fellow, too, with a certain shabby air of coxcombry even in his travel-stained attire,"—and how accurately does he describe the metamorphosis of this nauseous grub into a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... put the cook in irons for two days 'cos the poor devil 'ad tumbled up against the side of the galley an' burnt the 'air off the side of 'is 'ead, and the old man said it was untidy; and we all 'ad to 'ave cold grub for two days—and in them latitudes! Lord, 'ow we ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 28, 1917 • Various

... with his comb, The mouse at her dray, The grub in his tomb, While winter away; But the firefly and hedge-shrew and lobworm, I pray, 5 How fare they? Ha, ha, thanks for your counsel, my Zanze! "Feast upon lampreys, quaff Breganze"— The summer of life ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... what," he said to her through the window, "we won't bother about going out to grub; we'll have a day in the country; we can enjoy ourselves just as much there. Eh, dear? Oh, I beg your pardon, but you're so pretty, you ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... but under these circumstances the activity which was at first so necessary has become useless; the legs which did such good service are no longer required; and the active slim larva changes into a white fleshy grub, which floats comfortably in the honey with its mouth ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock

... by making a small incision with a clean, sharp knife in the center of the swelling. Then press them out and into each cavity from which the grub has been extracted, or squeezed out, should be injected a five per cent solution of Carbolized Sweet Oil to prevent any further development of flies or grubs. Cattle sprayed with fly repellants during ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek

... nature in producing results that get destroyed because of their unfitness. He also emphasized the number of adaptations which, if designed, would argue an evil rather than a good designer. Here all depends upon the point of view. To the grub under the bark the exquisite fitness of the woodpecker's organism to extract him would ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James

... with such adherence to dust and corruption, with such vicious tastes, such an abdication of right, or such abjectness that one feels inclined to crush him under foot? Of what butterfly is, then, this earthly life the grub? ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... you, and then runs half-frightened away—it's all this, that makes you feel sneaking somehow, and ashamed of yourself; and then, if it's wintertime, they just give you fire enough to make you think you'd like more, and bring in your grub as if they wished it 'ud choke you—as I dare say they do, for the matter of that, most heartily. If they're very civil, they make you up a bed in the room at night, and if they don't, your master sends one in for you; but there you are, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... conversationalist in days when conversation was no mere slipshod gabble of slang but cut and thrust of poignant epigram and repartee; warm-hearted, perhaps too warm-hearted, and ready to lend a helping hand even to the most undeserving, a quality which gathered all Grub Street round her door. At a period when any and every writer, mean or great, of whatsoever merit or party, was continually assailed with vehement satire and acrid lampoons, lacking both truth and decency, Aphra Behn does not come off scot-free, nobody did; and upon ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... been the same. Nothin's prospered; the money wouldn't come—or stick if it did. And so here I am—all that's left of me. It isn't much; and by and by a few rank weeds 'ull spring from it, and old Joey there, who's paid to grub round the graves, old Joey 'ull curse and say: a weedy fellow that, a rotten, weedy blackguard; and spit on his hands and hoe, till the weeds lie bleedin' their juices—the last heirs of me ... the last issue of ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... consider was now gone by: the gentlemen of England must be their own champions: the declared enemies of their order were brave, strong, numerous, and uncompromising. They must meet their foes in the field: they must not be belied and misrepresented by hireling advocates: they must not have Grub Street publishing Gazettes from Whitehall; "that's a dig at Bacon's people, Mr. Bungay," said Shandon, turning round to the publisher. Bungay clapped his stick on the floor. "Hang him, pitch into him, Capting," he said with ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... curculio of the plum and peach is a small snout-beetle that inserts its eggs under the skin of the fruit and then makes a characteristic crescent-shaped cut beneath it. The grub feeds within the fruit and causes it to drop. When full grown, it enters the ground, changes in late summer to the beetle, which finally goes into hibernation in sheltered places. Spray plums just after blossoms fall with arsenate of lead, 6 to 8 lb. in 100 gal. of water, and repeat the application ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey

... about the purpose of the bird in storing the nuts in this manner. De Saussure tells us he has witnessed the birds eating the acorns after they had been placed in holes in trees, and expresses his conviction that the insignificant grub which is only seen in a small proportion of nuts is not the food they are ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various

... known two days since?—the strange, unprincipled, impulsive being, who yielded like the reed, to every gust of passion—this deep, clear, vigorous thinker! It was indeed a change to puzzle sager heads than that of Arvina! a transformation, sudden and beautiful as that from the torpid earthy grub, to the swift-winged etherial butterfly! He gazed at her, until she smiled in reply to his look of bewilderment; and then he met her smile with a sad heavy sigh, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... Walpole was not one jot more free than the garreteers from whose contact he shrank. Of literary meannesses and literary vices, his life and his works contain as many instances as the life and the works of any member of Johnson's club. The fact is, that Walpole had the faults of Grub Street, with a large addition from St. James's Street, the vanity, the jealousy, and the irritability of a man of letters, the affected superciliousness and apathy ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... precautions were better than too few. It was Perry's ambition to learn navigation so that he might ultimately be entrusted with the wheel, and to that end he stood at Steve's elbow until, when they gained the Main Channel, Ossie's dulcet voice was heard proclaiming, "Grub, fellows!" from below. Steve was rather too preoccupied to be very informative, but Perry did manage to imbibe some information. For instance, he learned that a sailing craft had the right of way over a power craft, something he had not known previously, and observed that a large proportion ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour

... to my mean allowance," he said to himself, in a discontented tone. "Aunt Eliza might give me ten dollars every week just as well as not. She is positively rolling in wealth, while I have to grub along like a newsboy. Why, that fellow Luke has a great deal ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger

... makes much difference," said Burke, "as to what his story is. We've got to get rid of him in some way. We don't want to carry him about with us. We might leave him here, with a lot of grub and a tent. That would ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton

... my thinkin' is, it'd be as safe as the Backwoods. I must go to—it's no difference where—to-morrow mornin', but I'll be back day after to-morrow night, and you needn't stir from here till I come. You've grub enough ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... jobs on account of the grub. You've got to stick till fall; then we'll both go. We'll strike the ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... a second aviso in the Spanish paper, addressed to marineros of all nations. Triple wages to those who will take service on a well-appointed ship. In addition, all the usual allowances, the best of grub and grog. Surely this should get the Condor ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... of it, in each of which were two locusts, or eighteen in all. The locusts of the locality had suffered great slaughter. Some of them in the hole or den had been eaten to a mere shell by the larvæ of the hornet. Under the wing of each insect an egg is attached; the egg soon hatches, and the grub at once proceeds to devour the food its thoughtful parent has provided. As it grows, it weaves itself a sort of shell or cocoon, in which, after a time, it undergoes its metamorphosis, and comes out, I think, a perfect insect toward the end ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... where the command halted for us to lay in a supply of forage which was stored there. I was still messing with Major Brown, with whom I went into the village to purchase a supply of provisions for our mess; but unfortunately we were in too jolly a mood to fool away money on “grub.” We bought several articles, however, and put them into the ambulance and sent them back to camp with our cook. The major and myself did not return until reveille next morning. Soon afterward the general ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... slew-footed darky was leaning against the corner of the railroad station in a Texas town when the noon whistle in the canning factory blew and the hands hurried out, bearing their grub buckets. The darky listened, with his head on one side until the rocketing echo had quite died away. Then he heaved a deep sigh and remarked ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... was formerly thought that this bird, like its near relatives, the downy and hairy woodpeckers, was forever boring for insects; but when we examine the regularity and symmetry of the arrangement of its holes, we realise that they are for a very different purpose than the exposing of an occasional grub. ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe

... on the point of proving to her ladyship that in these days, when Art has become genteel, and even New Grub Street "decorates" her walls—when success means not so much painting fine pictures as building fine houses to paint in—the greatest compliment you can pay to a man of genius is surely to call him either a beggar ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... great liberator, freeing us from dwelling among ugliness and rubbish. It gives a foretaste of freedom of the spirit, reducing mankind to the only real and final inequality: inequality in the power of appreciating and enjoying. The poor clerk, or schoolmistress, or obscure individual from Grub Street can, with its help, get as much variety and pleasure out of a hundred miles' circuit as more fortunate persons from unlimited globetrotting. Nay, the fortunate person can on a bicycle get rid of the lumber and litter which constitutes so large a proportion ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee

... without speaking, and he went on: "You won't be having this sort of grub in Darneford Gaol, you know!" As she again looked at him with no understanding, he added by way of explanation: "After you've been charged to-morrow, it's there they'll send you, I expect, to ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... things first," said Sammy. "Then I'll rig up a fish-line. We'll have to catch fish to help out with the rest of the grub," added ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill

... Authors have a direct interest in the prosperity of publishers. The misfortune of authorship is not that publishers make so much money, but that they make so little. If Paternoster Row were wealthier than it is, there would be better cheer in Grub-street. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... the candle remarked when... But, hush! Not a word more on that subject! Kinch, wake up! Bread, butter, honey. Haines, come in. The grub is ready. Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts. Where's the sugar? O, jay, there's ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... "crack-house" or other. The cost of the "feed," as Mr. Timmis termed it, was generally decided by a toss of "best two and three;" and somehow it invariably happened that Mr. Crobble lost; but he was so good-humoured, that really it was a pleasure, as Mr. Wallis said, to "grub" at ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour

... protector against the assaults of other lads—my ready compendium of universal knowledge. I never dreamed but that if I prospered he would prosper; and if he, then I. Why, David, I can feel him now clapping me on the back and calling me his grub-worm. 'Some day,' he would say, 'I'll come and ask a bed in your garret.' And I would laugh at him and talk of the time when we—I always said 'we'—when we should have a pair of fine trotters, and should go skimming over ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... complaints, the schemes, and the hopes and fears of a crowd of inferior writers, "who," he said, in the words of Roger Ascham, "lived men knew not how, and died obscure, men marked not when." He believed, that he could give a better history of Grub street than any man living. His house was filled with a succession of visitors till four or five in the evening. During the whole time he presided at his tea-table. Tea was his favourite beverage; and, when the late Jonas Hanway ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... that she should meet this my one friend in the environment she loved best—in my rooms, whose atmosphere, she declared, belonged to an earlier time and place. (She found in me Nolly Goldsmith and all of Grub Street.) So they met at the tea-table in my study, and a great warmth stole over your father. He spoke without looking at either of us, while Ellen looked as if her destiny ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London

... dead, and the scene is changed; another monarch has ascended the throne, and the grub has changed to a beautiful butterfly! The witnesses to all I have asserted are still living, loudly now proclaim the truth, and ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... an' me, eatin', sleepin' together as thick as thieves. He had a family somewhere, same as me—the wife had a little money but her old man made him quit—some trouble. After awhile we got tired of workin' for wages, grub staked, and beat it for the mountains. That was back in nineteen one or two, I reckon. We found a vein up above Wagon Wheel Gap. It looked good and we staked out claims and worked it, hardly stoppin' to eat or sleep." Coast stopped with a gasp and a shrug. "Well, the long an' short ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs

... ranch, Geoffrey possessed himself of a grub-hoe, which is a pick with an adz-shaped blade with an ax and shovel; also he returned with the girls to the boulder. For an hour or two he toiled hard, grubbing out hundredweights of soil and gravel from round about ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... silly—he makes him say it before he feeds him. He'll call you every time he wants his grub." Ernest could not resist airing ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... never wrote such a long letter in my life before, but I am in the blues, and have no one to talk to. I wish my poor governor had lived. I wish I were in the country. I wish your aunt was a moth. Wouldn't I pin her to a cork! Mind you work up old Mother Hubbard to a sumptuous provision of grub for next half, and don't forget the other grubs. Would that I could dig with thee for ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... safe and sound, with all our possessions about us," commented Tom, when all but Oom had withdrawn. "I guess we'll make out all right in giant land. I wonder what they have to eat? Or perhaps we'd better tackle some of our own grub." ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton

... but it does my heart good to see you! Come, come away up to my house an' have some grub. Yes, yes—axin' your pardon for not answerin' right off—I am one o' the Bounty mutineers; the last one—John Smith once, better known now as John Adams. But where ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne

... keep another soul. You would have to cook your own grub and my slops. Do you think you ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... on the 27th of November with six dogs and a "basket" sled and about five hundred pounds' weight of load, including tent and stove, bedding, clothes for the winter, grub box and its equipment, and dog feed. The dogs were those that I had used the previous winter, with one exception. The leader had come home lame from the fish camp where he had been boarded during the summer, and, despite all attentions, the lameness had persisted; so he must be left behind, and ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck

... long calm. An awning had been rigged up on the poop for the passengers, and under it sat Lestrange, trying to read, and the children trying to play. The heat and monotony had reduced even Dicky to just a surly mass, languid in movement as a grub. As for Emmeline, she seemed dazed. The rag-doll lay a yard away from her on the poop deck, unnursed; even the wretched box and its whereabouts she ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... he grinned amiably. "I had a few drinks with the boys on the way up, that's all. No, sir, it was straight business with a capital B all the time I was gone. I've got a good thing in hand, Sis—big money in sight. Tell you about it later. Think you and Katy can rustle grub for ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... better hurry back home and get their blankets rolled, and an extra pair of shirts and some spare socks thrown together. And, boys, the best thing you can do is to go down to the store and get some ammunition. We can get all the grub we want from the ship's stores out at Kadiak. Now, excuse me, ladies, but don't take my time arguing this matter, because I've got several things to do; and the boat's going to start inside of an hour, and we're ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough

... graces of deportment, such powers of conversation, could never pass unnoticed. Mr was too common for such merit. A man so gentlemanly should have been—but Fortune is capricious—born a Duke: just as some dukes should have been born labourers. He caught the fancy of the king, knelt down a grub, and rose a butterfly. John Chester, Esquire, was knighted and ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... giant," said Bill. "You can't be even sure of going until you see Mr. Waterman. I would not be surprised if they charge you two prices, for they will surely have to get an extra guide to carry the big canoe they'll have to have for you and another extra man to carry extra grub." ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton

... been through it,' said Rex, 'and most of us have survived the change. With insects, the caterpillar turns into the pretty moth. With Korps students, the butterfly becomes sooner or later a crawling, philistine grub. The moral superiority of the worm over the moth is manifest in his works. Have ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... my daytimes out in the Back yard," he wrote. "I've lokated a bordin house handy by, but the Grub thare is tuffer than the mug on a Whailer two year out. I don't offen meet anybody I know, but tother day I met barney Black. He asked about you and your fokes and I told him. He was prety down on his Luck I thort and acted Blue. His wife is hed neck and heles in Chapter goins on. I see her name ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln

... lasts much longer, what shall we do for grub? The sea-pie we have brought has gone bad, and I am afraid that the beef and pork won't keep good many hours out of ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston

... ye, sir? Do you know who I am, sir? You are one of the pack of Grub Street scribblers that my friend Mr. Secretary hath laid by the heels. How dare ye, sir, speak to me in this tone?" cries the ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... I'm not hungry, as I used to be," he answered, in a tone of satisfaction. "Captain Mudge has taken me aboard the Amity, and I get as much grub as I want, though I shouldn't mind a bit of ...
— The Two Shipmates • William H. G. Kingston

... other places. But you won't get one as long as you stay here and we graft off of you. You've been buying half the grub for the four of us. You fudge the bills against yourself. You're a ...
— Class of '29 • Orrie Lashin and Milo Hastings

... The apple-weevil appears upon the scene. It, too, has to maintain life and to fulfil a duty towards its progeny. The grub eats its way through the fruit to the stem and the apple falls to the ground. But the dainty beetle chooses the strongest and soundest for its brood, otherwise too many of the strong ones would be allowed to live, and competition ...
— Married • August Strindberg

... more, and his senses came back to him, and, lookin' round, he saw that there was land on both sides of the boat and that she was in a sort of wide river. But, although the land was so plain in sight, Mr Barber was so weak that he couldn't do anything; for while he was light-headed he'd hove all his grub overboard and was now starving. So he just had to let the boat drift with the wind; and after a bit she drove ashore. But even then Mr Barber couldn't do anything but just climb out of the boat and fling himself down upon the sand, where ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood

... the old man violently, "hear the boy! Don't like Blenham, huh? Goin' to run the ranch yourself, huh? Why, I tell you it's as good as mine right now! How are you goin' to pay your men, how are you goin' to buy grub for 'em, where are you goin' to find runnin'-expense money? Go an' tell folks you're mortgaged to me for fifty thousan' dollars an' see how much they'll stake you for on top of that. Or come over my way an' try to borrow ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory

... looked on, papa came with provisions. At one time the food consisted of green worms about twice as large as a common knitting needle. Three or four of them he held crosswise of his beak, and gave one to each nestling. The next course was a big white grub, which he did not divide, but gave to one, who had ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller

... was born in Moorfields, and had received part of his early instruction in Grub-street. 'Sir, (said Johnson, smiling) you have been regularly educated.' Having asked who was his instructor, and Mr. Hoole having answered, 'My uncle, Sir, who was a taylor;' Johnson, recollecting himself, said, 'Sir, I knew him; we ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... headquarters for the ranch, and the round-pole corrals were the only fences on the place," he said; "when those old sheds held the saddle horses on cold nights, and the wagons were out from green grass to snowfall, and the boys laid around all winter, just reportin' regular at grub-pile and catching up on sleep they'd lost in the summer—Lor-dee, what a place it must ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... were some who were too indifferent or too stupid to take an interest in anything less arresting than a thump on the head. Among these was a fat old woman, who, with her back to all the excitement, was bending herself double to grub in the litter of sticks and bones for some tit-bit which she had dropped. Grom's shaft, turning gracefully against the blue came darting downward on a long slope, and buried its point in that upturned fat and grimy thigh. With a yell the ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... get busy with that gas and I'll manage the grub part of the programme! If Erastus declines to fork over I'll choke him. But I know he can't refuse when he sees her," and Tom jerked his thumb backward while saying this toward Jeanne, now sitting on a friendly ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach

... with us every time, and I reckon we are men and know a man when we see him. We haven't got any faith in that hill, but we have a respect for a man that's got the pluck that you've showed; you've fought a good fight, with everybody agin you and if we had grub to go on, I'm d—-d if we wouldn't stand by you till the cows come home! That is what the boys say. Now we want to put in one parting blast for luck. We want to work three days more; if we don't find anything, we won't bring in no bill against you. That is what ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... 'lows, Doctor, them has been clemmed up on times. But, Jeanie, she never says nothing; she's that busy with t' things I can't do. She 'lowed she'd stay and mind t' children till I get better a bit. No, that's right. She hasn't much grub. But us uses very little, ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... Sant' Fe conductor down ter Raton, Noo Mex. He'd tell me how she'd make beef stoo an' hot biscuit thet would melt in yer mouth. 'I don't like them kind,' sez I, one day. 'I like somethin' I kin chew on. What'd ther Lord give us teeth fer if grub is ter melt in ther mouth? No, sir; give me mine gristle an' hide. Ther tougher they be ther better I ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor

... come running at this signal, showing up against the green; guided by the position of the web, they will assuredly find the precious purse; and a strange grub, feasting on a hundred new-laid eggs, will ruin the establishment. I do not know these enemies, not having sufficient materials at my disposal for a register of the parasites; but, from indications ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... confirm, for there a material connection between the facts is justly held to be consistent with an intellectual—and which the most analogous cases we can think of in the organic world do not favor; for there is a material connection between the grub, the pupa, and the butterfly, between the tadpole and the frog, or, still better, between those distinct animals which succeed each other in alternate and very dissimilar generations. So that mere analogy might rather suggest a natural ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... hardships, and perhaps, some pretty severe ones. There'll soon be sleet and snow in the air, and cold days and shivery nights, and the portages will be long and hard. On the whole, there's been plenty to eat—not what we would have had at home, perhaps, but good, wholesome grub—and we're all in better condition and stronger than when we started, but flour and pork are getting low, lentils and corn meal are nearly gone, and short rations, with hungry days, are soon to come if we don't strike game, and you know how uncertain that ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace

... according to rule, and to rule established from time immemorial: but lest any of you should so much err as to fancy shabby what is only characteristic, I must endeavour to be beforehand with the malice of conjecture, and have the honour to inform you, that I am enlisted in the Grub-street regiment, of the third story, and under the tattered banner of scribbling volunteers! a race which, if it boasts not the courage of heroes, at least equals them in enmity. This coat, therefore, is merely the ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... other into some part of Africa—they got lost and had to eat each other or lizards, or something like that—and then he went to the Philippines, and got stuck there and had to sell books to get home. He had a little money, "enough for a grub-stake," he said, and all his folks were dead. Then a college friend of his wrote a rural play called Sweet Peas—"Great title, don't you think?" he asked—and he put up all the money. It would have been a hit, he said, but the kid in the play—the one that unites its parents in the last act just ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... any kind. Here I am, without anything to eat an' no prospects of anything, sitting up on this locoed layout like a sore thumb, an' can't move without hitting myself! An' it'll be late to-day before I can get any grub, too. Oh, well," he sighed, "I ain't in love, so things might be a whole lot worse with me. An' he ain't in love, neither, only he won't listen to reason. He gets mad an' calls me a sage hen an' says I'm stuck on myself because some fool told me ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford

... different with you. Your family live so far out west they can't very well mail grub to you; but Mater is right here in New York, and of course as she's near by she'd be no sort of a mother if she didn't send me something beside this prison fare. Come on and see ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett

... that axe and scoot round getten' this stranger some breakfast and some grub to take with him. He's one of them San Francisco sports out here trout-fishing in the branch. He's got adrift from his party, has lost his rod and fixins, and had to camp out last night in the Gin ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... similar opinion, and no dissentients being heard, the Japan medlar passed with acclamation. The Buggibellia spectabilis of New Holland, calls you to look at his pink blossoms, which are no other than his leaves in masquerade. We grub up, on the gardener's hint and permission, some of the Cameris humilis, to whose filamentous radicles are attached certain little grains, of great sweetness and flavour. The banana-tree, "Musa paradisaica," which, cooped in our low hot-houses at home, breaks its neck, and might ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... road frightfully worn, lined with poplars. Just at the end of the village mechanical transport ends and there is a kind of depot from which all the stuff goes up by mules or men or bicycles to the trenches. It is the only movement in the place, and I have spent hours watching men shift grub or ammunition or lending them a hand. All day one hears guns, a kind of thud at the stomach, and now and then one sees an aeroplane, very high and small. Just beyond this point there is a group of ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... only six years old, had advanced far enough toward civilization to have a small jail, and into that we were shoved. Night was come by the time we were lodged there, and, being in pretty good appetite, I struck the sheriff for some grub. ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... I ordered the room a week ago. Stop; there's the key. Go in; change your togs; you'll find something in that bag that'll fit you. Wait for me. Stop—no; you'd better get some grub there first." He fumbled in his pockets, but fruitlessly. "No matter. You'll find a buckskin purse, with some scads in it, in the bag. So long." And before Randolph could thank him, he lurched away again into ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... in two years I shall sell it by the yard. Believe me, sir, English fortunes, even the largest, are mere child's play, compared with the colossal wealth a man can accumulate, if he looks beyond these great discoveries to their consequences, and lets others grub for him. But what is the use of it all to me?" said this Bohemian, with a sigh. "I have no taste for luxuries; no love of display. I have not even charity to dispense on a large scale; for there are no deserving poor out there; and the poverty that springs from ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade



Words linked to "Grub" :   grub out, look for, maggot, chuck, freeload, cadge, seek, grubby, mooch, Grub Street, eats, search, sponge, larva, grub up



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