Other forms: grumbling, grumbled, grumbles
To grumble is to complain in a low, rumbling voice, to nobody in particular, expecting nothing to change. A man in the queue grumbling about the price of coffee; someone grumbling at the rain while pulling their coat on anyway.
It takes ABOUT or AT: grumbling about the noise, grumbling at his neighbours. A grumble is also the complaint itself — 'a few grumbles about the early start' — and a grumbler is somebody who never stops. Thunder grumbles behind the hills and an empty stomach grumbles before lunch, both borrowing the same low rolling sound. Size matters here: a grumble is smaller than a protest and is not trying to win anything, which is why grumbling sounds half-affectionate when you describe someone you are fond of. Do not mix it with mumble, which is unclear speech with no complaint in it, or growl, which comes from an animal or a very angry man.
1verbgrumbleTo complain in a low, continuous, half-hearted voice.
“He grumbled about the queue but stayed in it.”
2verbthunderOf thunder or a stomach: to make a low rolling sound.
“Thunder grumbled somewhere behind the hills.”
3nounmildA mild complaint.
“There were a few grumbles about the early start, and that was all.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Grumble came in from Middle French grommeler and Old French grumeler, 'to murmur, grumble', which the French had from Middle Dutch grommelen, 'to murmur, mutter, grunt' — a repeated-action form of grommen, 'to growl'. The word was shaped to sound like the thing it names, and its cousins do the same job across the North Sea: Dutch grommelen, German grummeln.
Middle Dutch
*grommelen
Old French
grumeler — to murmur, grumble
Middle French
grommeler
English, today
grumble
Built from
Probably from Middle French grommeler, from Old French grumeler (“to murmur, grumble”), from Middle Dutch grommelen "to murmur, mutter, grunt"; > Modern Dutch grommelen (“to grumble”), frequentative of Middle Dutch grommen (“to growl, grunt”). Cognate with Middle Low German grummelen (> Low German grummeln (“to grumble”)), German grummeln (“to grumble”), Norwegian dialectal grymja (“to growl, grunt”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA