GRINCH Synonyms: 40 Similar and Opposite Words

grinch

noun

ˈgrinch

Definition of grinch

as in cynic

a person who spoils the pleasure of others accused the mayor of being a grinch after he cancelled the city's annual holiday parade for budgetary reasons

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Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of grinch The nonprofit donated almost $200,000 to the church for the materials a grinch stole. — Dawn White, CBS News, 10 Dec. 2025 To play off the flavor of the candy, the grinch-green dough has a subtle cinnamon flavor of its own. — Alana Al-Hatlani, Southern Living, 30 Nov. 2025

Recent Examples of Synonyms for grinch

Noun

That the earnestness the genre requires galls us cynics, who love to hide in our books, away from all those pesky bodies in the first place?

— Brittany Allen, Literary Hub, 13 Aug. 2026
Questions about whose interests Infantino is serving have developed beyond average cynics who tend to suspect this type of thing.

— Simon Hughes, New York Times, 1 Aug. 2026

Definition of cynic

Noun

The study also computed the pre-tax and after-tax returns for overlapping 30-year periods and found that the tax drag varied over time.

— Bob Carlson, Forbes.com, 23 Aug. 2026
Rivalries are a defining aspect of the drama on Palm Royale, but in season two, the claws literally came out in a knock-down, drag-across-the-house showdown between Kristen Wiig’s Maxine Dellacorte-Simmons and Claudia Ferri’s Raquel Kimberly-Marco.

— Brande Victorian, HollywoodReporter, 21 Aug. 2026

Definition of drag

Noun

Seafood is the star of the show here—especially the shrimp and grits and crab cakes, which Bernthal says are a must-order.

— Lauren Dana Ellman, Travel + Leisure, 27 Aug. 2026
The crabs were first spotted in the Mediterranean Sea in the last century but really began wreaking havoc only around a decade ago, when their population surged, posing a threat both to native biodiversity and to the fishing industry.

— Gennaro Tomma, Scientific American, 25 Aug. 2026

Definition of crab

Noun

The first thing Sweetpea does, after ditching her spoilsport colleague at the hotel, is pay a visit to SwiftGC, a payment processor recently acquired by Tender.

— Amanda Whiting, Vulture, 6 Feb. 2026
Granted, this might simply be an old-fashioned spoilsport way to view the market.

— Michael Santoli, CNBC, 10 Jan. 2026

Definition of spoilsport

Noun

My ‘Deborah Vance Show senior writer’ persona was kind of a rude complainer with an incipient alcohol problem.

— Merrill Markoe, Deadline, 21 Aug. 2026
Are they deluded into thinking that the complainers are just a squeaky wheel minority and the majority of fans are happy with it?

— Jeremy Rutherford, New York Times, 13 July 2026

Definition of complainer

Noun

CFMoto clearly doesn’t like to play by the conventional rules, and its latest offering takes a direct shot at big-bore ADVs at a fraction of the price.

— New Atlas, New Atlas, 22 Aug. 2026
The bore heading eastbound into Chinatown will close for about seven months, with one lane of traffic open in each direction in the other bore.

— Sooji Nam, CBS News, 17 Aug. 2026

Definition of bore

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grin

grinch

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“Grinch.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/grinch. Accessed 2 Sep. 2026.

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Synonyms of grinch

noun

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