Meanings
plural grobians
- datedderogatoryA coarse, uncouth, uncivilized and possibly violent fellow.
1 more example
[B]eware of men who love not fly leaves neither regard margins, but write notes over the latter, and light their pipes with the former. […] To such fellows it matters not that they make a book dirty and greasy, cutting the pages with their fingers, and holding the boards over the fire till they crack. All these slatternly practices, though they destroy a book as surely as the flames of Caesar's soldiers at Alexandria, seem fine manly acts to the grobians who use them.
1892, Andrew Lang, The Library, second edition, page 41-42
Origin
- Proto-Indo-European*krewp-
- Proto-Indo-European*krewp-o-s
- Proto-Germanic*hreubazder.?
- Old High Germangrob
- Middle High Germangrob
- Germangrob
- GermanGrobianus
- GermanGrobian
- Englishgrobian
Borrowed from German Grobian (“brute”).
More words from German
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
grobian. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/grobian
“grobian.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/grobian. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “grobian,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/grobian.
Source: grobian on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.