grue
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Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.
grue¹
- /ɡɹuː/
Sounds like grew · Rhymes with -uː
Where it comes from
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”).
verb grues · gruing · grueing · grued
- To be frightened; also, to shudder with fear; to quake, to tremble. ["]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."
noun grues
- A shiver, a shudder. Upon all others the sight of Alison, were it but for a moment, cast a cold grue, not to be remembered without terror.
grue²
- /ɡɹuː/
Sounds like grew · Rhymes with -uː
Where it comes from
Back-formation from gruesome.
noun
- 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
grue³
- /ɡɹuː/
Sounds like grew · Rhymes with -uː
Where it comes from
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.
noun grues
- A fictional man-eating predator that dwells in the dark. 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.
grue⁴
- /ɡɹuː/
Sounds like grew · Rhymes with -uː
Where it comes from
Blend of green + blue. The philosophy sense was coined by American philosopher Nelson Goodman in 1955 to illustrate concepts in the philosophy of science. The linguistic sense was coined by American linguist Paul Kay in 1975 as a translation from languages such as Welsh that have a basic cover term that covers both the hues called "green" and "blue" in English.
adjective
- Of an object, green when first observed before a specified time or blue when first observed after that time. 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.
- 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.
noun
- The property of being green when first observed before a specified time or blue when first observed after that time. [T]he color grue would change in color. Colors do not do this; so ‘grue’ cannot be a color term.
- 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. Grue is the last of the composite categories that languages lose; hence its frequency. The transition to Stage V, where all basic color categories are primary, occurs when grue is replaced by its component primaries blue and green.
grue⁵
- /ɡɹuː/
Sounds like grew · Rhymes with -uː
noun
- Nutraloaf, a bland mixture of foods served in prisons.
Grue⁶
proper noun
- A municipality of Innlandet, Norway, formerly part of the county of Hedmark.
Translations
Every language
adj philosophy: of an object that is first green, then blue
| 日本語 | グルー |
|---|---|
| Português | verzul, verul |
| Français | blert |
| Deutsch | blün |
| Ελληνικά | πρασινογάλαζος prasinogálazos |
adj linguistics: green or blue in languages that do not distinguish the two colors
| Español | verdiazul, azul verde |
|---|---|
| 한국어 | 푸르다 pureuda |
| 日本語 | 青い aoi |
| 中文 | 青 |
| Português | verzul, verul |
| Français | blert |
| Deutsch | blün |
| Ελληνικά | πρασινογάλαζος prasinogálazos, γαλαζοπράσινος galazoprásinos |
| Русский | зи́ний zínij |
| Tiếng Việt | xanh |
adj translations to be checked
| 中文 | 綠藍 /绿蓝 |
|---|
Talk about this word "grue." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/grue. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. grue. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/grue "grue." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/grue.Cite this
@misc{grue_2026,
title = {grue},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/grue},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
