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Grubstake is a linguistic nugget that was dug up during the famous California Gold Rush, which began in 1848. Sometime between the first stampede and the early 1860s, when the gold-seekers headed off to Montana, prospectors combined grub ("food") and stake, meaning "an interest or share in an undertaking." At first grubstake was a noun, referring to any kind of loan or provisions that could be finagled to make an undertaking possible (with the agreement that the "grubstaker" would get a cut of any profits). By the 1870s, grubstake was also showing up as a verb meaning "to give someone a grubstake," and, since at least 1900, shortly after the Klondike Gold Rush, it has been applied to other situations in which a generous benefactor comes through with the funds.

Examples of grubstake in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web: Noun If someone needed a grubstake, Mother White was there. — David Reamer, Anchorage Daily News, 27 Mar. 2022 Private capital was a bank loan, a contract between a borrower and lender, or a grubstake raised from family members, friends or business associates. — The Economist, 4 July 2019 Recent Examples on the Web: Verb Out of cash, Steen reluctantly abandoned grubstaking to work as a carpenter in Tucson, Arizona, for a year, but the uranium called to him. — Aaron Robinson, Car and Driver, 27 July 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'grubstake.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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