are you gruntled ?

Disgruntled.

How may you be disgruntled if you are not already gruntled?


The 1st sense of gruntle was a repeated grunt, especially the noise that pigs make in. 

It is rarely used of humans, but an example occurs in a 1922 book, The Covered Wagon, by Emerson Hough, “They dismounted. The two Indians, short, deep-chested, bow-legged men, went to the packs. They gruntled as they unloaded the two larger mules.”


Gruntle appeared in the fifteenth century; by the end of the next century it had begun to be used to mean grumbling or complaining. I imagine it as old-retainer mumble, the noise that someone fed up with their condition will make under their breath all the time.

disgruntled has its current meaning, which the Oxford English Dictionary describes as a state of “moody discontent, sulky dissatisfaction or ill-humour”.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

After my spa day I was sheveled and gruntled.