grumble

Etymology

Its immediate source is uncertain.^[2] The American Heritage Dictionary and Barnhart favour borrowed from Middle Dutch grommelen (“to murmur, mutter, grunt”),^[3][4][5] from grommen (“to rumble, growl”).^[4][5] Etymonline and Barnhart allow for a route through Middle French grommeler (“to mutter between the teeth”),^[5][4] which Merriam-Webster prefers, tracing it through Old French grumeler and gromer to the Middle Dutch verb.^[6] Hoad and the Oxford Dictionary of English see a frequentative formed within English from the obsolete grummen,^[7][8] recorded about 1450 from the Middle Dutch or Middle Low German verb;^[9] Collins derives it from Middle Low German grommelen, and Dictionary.com suggests a frequentative of Old English grymman (“to wail”).^[10][11] Cognates are Middle Low German grummen (“to grumble”), Old High German umbegrummōn (“to gnaw”) and German grummeln (“to rumble”).^[4][6][2] Etymonline calls the base imitative, or perhaps akin to grim,^[5] and Ayto and Hoad connect it through Proto-Germanic *grum- with Proto-Indo-European *gʰrem-, a probable imitation of rumbling, as in Old Prussian grumins (“thunder”).^[12][7] The -b- is unetymological, as in mumble.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

To utter murmurs of discontent, to complain: before 1586, in Sidney's Arcadia.^[2][4] Merriam-Webster dates it to 1580^[6] and Etymonline to the 1580s.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The complaining sense is the first recorded, ahead of the sense of sound.^[2] Of persons and animals uttering dull inarticulate sounds, the verb is in Shakespeare's King Lear (1608),^[2] and of thunder or drums rumbling, in Fletcher before 1625,^[2] although Etymonline has "a low, rumbling sound" from the 1590s.^[5] Johnson (1755) kept all three: to murmur with discontent, to growl, and to make a hoarse rattle.^[13] The noun dates from 1623,^[2][4] and the transitive use, to mutter something out, from 1824.^[2] The grumbles, ill humour named jocularly as an illness, is from 1861.^[2] Slang added grumble-gizzard and grumble-guts for a habitual complainer,^[14] the latter also in Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Suffolk and Somerset dialects, alongside Lancashire grumble-belly.^[15] In the West Riding on the grumble meant discontented,^[15] and in Ayrshire a grumble could be a grudge or quarrel.^[15] From 1962 grumble, short for the rhyming slang grumble and grunt, was used in the slang sense of crumpet.^[2]

Timeline

• before 1586 – to complain, in Sidney's Arcadia.^[2][4]
• 1608 – of persons and animals, to mutter or growl faintly, in King Lear.^[2]
• before 1625 – of thunder or a drum, to rumble.^[2] Etymonline dates the sound sense to the 1590s.^[5]
• 1623 – noun, an act of grumbling.^[2][4]
• 1824 – transitive, to utter something with muttering.^[2]
• 1861 – the grumbles, ill humour.^[2]
• 1962 – slang noun, from rhyming grumble and grunt.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To complain in a low or surly way; to mutter discontentedly: The players grumbled about the early start.^{[3][10][6][2]}
2. To make a low, heavy rumbling or growling sound: Trucks grumbled past the window.^{[3][10][6][2]}
3. To express something in a discontented, muttering way.^[3][2]

Noun

1. A muttered complaint.^{[3][10][6][2]}
2. A low rumble or growl.^{[3][10][6][2]}
3. the grumbles: ill humour shown by complaining.^[2]

Word family

• grumbler
• grumblingly
• grumbly

Related words

• grim
• grimace
• mumble

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
10. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
15. ^ a b c Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)