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Yes, but....

Posted by Bruce Kahl on May 21, 2001

In Reply to: Grub posted by ESC on May 21, 2001

: : I heard a word in a cop show the other nite--"...by the way, thanks for the grub."--referring to a just finished meal in a restaurant.
: : Anybody know the origin of "grub"?

: : There is a Middle English word "grubben" and Old English "grafan" meaning "to dig" which can be linked to the word "grave" as in final resting place.

: : Webster's has grub as a verb as "to dig in the ground especially for something that is difficult to find or extract"--so could "grub" be digging around in the dirt for a potato or carrot?

: : Anybody?
: : thanx
: : bk

: "Whistlin' Dixie" by Robert Hendrickson has "GRUB UP -- To dig out. 'I been grubbing up a clump of willows outen my spring pasture for fifteen years.' (William Faulkner, 'The Hamlet' 1940)

Thanx Ms. ESC!
Yes, grub has a sense of digging.
But how does grub mean food?
I have looked at the word itself "food"--Middle English fode, from Old English fOda; akin to Old High German fuotar food, fodder, Latin panis bread, pascere to feed but nothing at all to link it to "grub".
Anybody?
thanx
bk

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