grunge

What it means

1. informaluncountableDirt or filth, especially when difficult to clean.

   The cinema floor was covered in grunge deposited by the crowds.

2. informaluncountableThe state of being filthy; grubbiness.

   Chad used to work as a coal miner, but couldn't handle the constant grunge.

3. uncountableentertainmentA subgenre of alternative rock, originating from Seattle, Washington in the early 1990s, which melds punk and metal.

   Alice liked to wear plaids and ripped jeans, and listen to grunge.

   1 more example

   Grunge was the de facto soundtrack of the early nineties. It’s also sometimes criticized for its sonic limitations—most groups played the same way, at the same speed and with the same worldview, usually mining the same handful of influences. It was, by design, a derivative musical form. But it did introduce at least one new idea to mainstream rock: a collective sense of self-aware skepticism.

   2022, Chuck Klosterman, The Nineties, New York: Penguin Press, →ISBN

In a sentence

The cinema floor was covered in grunge deposited by the crowds.

Where it comes from

Back-formation from grungy.