Grubby means rather dirty in a small everyday way. Grubby hands, a grubby shirt, grubby fingernails.
It is mild and affectionate about children and mildly disapproving about adults — grubby is the dirt of a day rather than of neglect. Figuratively, a grubby deal is sordid rather than illegal. Note grub, meaning a larva, from which the sense of grubbing about in soil comes.
1adjectivegrubbyRather dirty in a small everyday way.
“The children came in from the garden with grubby hands and muddy knees.”
synonyms: mucky, grimy
grubby is a quality of dirtiness.
Proto-Indo-European
*gʰrebʰ-
Proto-Germanic
*grubb-
Proto-West Germanic
*grubb-
Old English
*grubbian
Middle English
grubben
English
grub
English, today
grubby
From grub + -y. grub comes from Middle English grubben, grobben, from Old English grubbian, from Proto-West Germanic grubb-, from Proto-Germanic grubb- (compare Middle Dutch grobben (“to scrape, scramble, grab”), Old High German grubilōn (“to dig, search”), German grübeln (“to meditate, ponder”)), from Proto-Germanic grub- (“to dig”) (see grabaną). The noun sense of "larva" is from Middle English grub, grubbe, grobbe, crubbe and may derive from the notion of "digging insect" from the verb above, or from the uncertainly related Middle English grub (“dwarfish fellow”). Compare West Frisian krobbe (“beetle”). The slang sense of "food" is first recorded 1659, and has been linked with birds eating grubs or with bub (“drink”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA