grubble

grubble

English

Etymology

From grub +‎ -le, frequentative, but compare grabble.

Verb

grubble (third-person singular simple present grubbles, present participle grubbling, simple past and past participle grubbled)

1. (obsolete, transitive, intransitive) To feel or grope in the dark.
   • 1704, John Dryden, Poetical Miscellanies, volume 5, London, translation of Amores by Ovid, page 28:

     When all depart, when Complements are loud, / Be sure to mix among the thickest Crowd: / There I will be, and there we cannot miss, / Perhaps to Grubble, or at least to Kiss.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for grubble in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)