Definition 1: (Western US Slang) Plain food, 'eats,' victuals; also, a thick white larva of some insects that spends its life digging through the soil

Usage 1: We don't actually advocate using today's word in its first meaning: it is substandard slang originating in the speech of the American cowboy. On a cattle drive, grub was simple but hot, served up around the chuck wagon, which carried the provisions for the drive. The chuck wagon's name probably didn't come from the fact that you were apt to 'chuck up' the food it provided, but more likely because it was where biscuits, called "chuck" on board ships of the time were prepared.

Suggested usage: Should you ever play cowboy, you wouldn't want to use words like "cuisine," "comestibles," or even "food." For that situation, put this word to work, "That was some grub you rustled up for us tonight, Cookie; where did you dig it up?" Why grub has to be 'rustled up' is anyone's guess; that is just the way it is on the prairie. A "grub stake?" you ask. That was a Gold Rush term: the money a miner needed for grub until he struck gold. It came with the understanding that the giver would share in the profits from any gold discovered.

Etymology: Speaking of grub, some of the best is the cured salmon known as gravlax, from Swedish grava "to bury" + lax "lox," named for the original process of curing it in the ground. The same root that produced "grava," turned up in Old English grybban "to dig," which ultimately became "grub." Because pigs and other animals usually grub for food, the word "grub" also became cowboy slang for "food." (There may have been little difference between what the animals dug up and what the chuck wagon provided.) In Middle Dutch the same root emerged as groeve "ditch," which was borrowed by English as "groove." The Old English word for "ditch" was "graef," which today is "grave." (We don't know where David Ryan of Sweet Valley, Pennsylvania dug up today's terms of the cowboy argot, but we hope he keeps grubbing for more.)