as in laboring
to devote serious and sustained effort
grubbing away at the yard work before the first snow of the season
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Recent Examples of grubbing
Double-bass glissandos hint at hands grubbing in the earth, while abrupt moments of concerted action—notably, an accordion wheezing out an F-sharp-minor chord—suggest flickering signals and transmissions.
—
Alex Ross, New Yorker, 18 May 2026
Released in 1958, Attack told of a wealthy heiress, fresh from a stint at a mental institution, who is turned into a giantess and then deals with her philandering husband and his no-good, money-grubbing floozy.
—Borys Kit, HollywoodReporter, 9 Jan. 2026
Alex Ross, New Yorker, 18 May 2026
Released in 1958, Attack told of a wealthy heiress, fresh from a stint at a mental institution, who is turned into a giantess and then deals with her philandering husband and his no-good, money-grubbing floozy.
—Borys Kit, HollywoodReporter, 9 Jan. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for grubbing
Verb
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Makar has played in every game this postseason, but was clearly laboring in Game 5 against the Minnesota Wild.—
Corey Masisak,
Denver Post,
20 May 2026
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Imagine a place of employment where everyone in the building is laboring to live out their childhood dream.—
Omar Kelly,
Miami Herald,
10 May 2026
Verb
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Veering between striving and settling, a person caught in the greatness trap struggles to admire the best without making everything else seem worse.—
Joshua Rothman,
New Yorker,
22 May 2026
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The other is striving to create the framework that may be vital for the future.—
Trefis Team,
Forbes.com,
20 May 2026
Verb
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Many libraries’ orders went unfulfilled, and all but the largest ones were left struggling to get popular titles to their patrons.—
Adeel Hassan,
New York Times,
18 May 2026
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Across Oahu’s North Shore, an area famed for its big-wave surfing, the small farms that help supply the island’s food are struggling after back-to-back storms in March brought the state’s worst flooding in two decades.—
Jennifer Sinco Kelleher,
Los Angeles Times,
17 May 2026
Verb
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By late summer, as the government’s funding was set to run out again, Jeffries was working closely with Schumer to make sure that Democrats in the House and the Senate were in alignment.—
Jason Zengerle,
New Yorker,
18 May 2026
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Across all of them, AI is working where the operating model was ready for it.—
Dennis Woodside,
Fortune,
17 May 2026
Cite this Entry
“Grubbing.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/grubbing. Accessed 24 May. 2026.
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