grue

• enPR: gro͞o, IPA^(key): /ɡɹuː/

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• Rhymes: -uː
• Homophone: grew

From Middle English gruen, probably from Middle Low German gruwen or Middle Dutch gruwen (Dutch gruwen), both from Proto-Germanic *grūwijaną.

grue (third-person singular simple present grues, present participle gruing, simple past and past participle grued)

1. (intransitive, archaic) To be frightened; to shudder with fear.
   • 1822, Sir Walter Scott, The Pirate, volume I, Philadelphia: H. C. Carey and I. Lea, pages 111–112:

     “It is seenteen hundred linen,” said the pedlar, giving a tweak to one of the shirts, in that knowing manner with which matrons and judges ascertain the texture of the loom ; “it’s seenteen hundred linen, and as strong as an it were dowlas. Nevertheless, mother, your bidding is to be done ; and 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.”

grue (plural grues)

1. A shiver, a shudder.
   • 1921, John Buchan, The Path of the King, chapter 9

     There was a sharp grue of ice in the air.

   • 1964, Geoffrey Jenkins, A Grue of Ice (title)

Back-formation from gruesome.

grue (uncountable)

1. 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

   There was grue everywhere after the accident

   • 1958, Samuel Youd, writing as John Christopher, The Caves of Night

     'I've told you - it wasn't much. He tried to kiss me.' She smiled slightly. 'Just after he had shown me the family skeletons.' / 'What a lovely bit of grue!'

   • 1996, Linda Badley, Writing Horror and the Body

     Carrie is Cinderella in the body language of menstrual blood and raging hormones. King’s adolescent joy in grimaces and groans, the Mad magazine humor, and the staple of “grue” hardly need mentioning.

   • 2002, Carole Nelson Douglas, Chapel Noir

     “[...] She is quite agreeable to gruesome ghost stories, but appalled by the lust for life.” / “I admit that I am surprised by how well she handles sheer grue, better than I.”

   • 2004, Talbot Mundy, Guns of the Gods

     “This is the grue,” said Dick, holding his lantern high. / Its light fell on a circle of skeletons, all perfect, each with its head toward a brass bowl in the center.

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.

grue (plural grues)

1. A fictional man-eating predator that dwells in the dark.
   • 1981, Byte magazine (volume 6):

     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.

   • 2009, "Jas", Hazadous ^[sic] Australian animals the GRUE.... your guide (on Internet newsgroup rec.travel.australia+nz)

     To find a grue, turn off the light at night, or go for a walk in a dark place (but carry a flashlight with you).

   • 2004, "M.D. Dollahite", How would you imagine a grue? (on Internet newsgroup rec.games.int-fiction)

     Incidentally, the best official text description I know of is in Sorcerer, when you actually become a grue and visit a grue colony. IIRC, even that description is vague, but does cannonize^[sic] that they are large four-legged reptiles.

Blend of green +‎ blue. Coined by Nelson Goodman to illustrate concepts in the philosophy of science.

grue (not comparable)

1. (philosophy) Of an object, green when first observed before a specified time or blue when first observed after that time.
   • 1965, Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction and Forecast,

     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.

   • 2007, Michael Clark, Paradoxes from A to Z‎

     The unexamined emeralds cannot be both green and grue, since if they are grue and unexamined they are blue.

   Synonym: bleen

2. (linguistics) Green or blue, as a translation from languages such as Welsh that do not distinguish between these hues.

   Synonym: bleen

grue (uncountable)

1. (slang) Nutraloaf, a bland mixture of foods served in prisons.

• aquamarine
• bleen
• blue-green
• turquoise
• Wikipedia article on grue

• Guer., Ruge, geru, regu, urge

According to the TLFi, an early borrowing from Vulgar Latin or Late Latin *grua, from Latin grūs, gruem.

• IPA^(key): /ɡʁy/

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grue f (plural grues)

1. crane (bird)
2. crane (machine)
3. (colloquial) prostitute, hooker

• gruter
• grutier

• “grue” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

• urge, urgé

grue (plural grues)

1. crane (animal)

grue

1. ablative singular of grūs

From Middle Low German [Term?], related to gruve (“mine”) and grav (“grave”).

grue f or m (definite singular grua or gruen, indefinite plural gruer, definite plural gruene)

1. fireplace

• ildsted

From Low German gruwen.

grue (present tense gruer, simple past grua or gruet or grudde, past participle grua or gruet or grudd)

1. To be queasy or nervous in anticipation of something.

   Han gruet for morgendagen.

   He was queasy about the following day.

   Han grudde seg til tannlegen.

   He was queasy about [the coming visit to] the dentist.

Can be used electively with the reflexive pronoun seg.

• “grue” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

From Middle Low German [Term?], related to gruve (“mine”) and grav (“grave”).

• IPA^(key): /²ɡrʉːə/

grue f (definite singular grua, indefinite plural gruer, definite plural gruene)

1. an open brick fireplace, a hearth

• “grue” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.