grue

present singular third person grues · participle present gruing · participle present grueing · participle past grued · past grued

1. Scotlandintransitivearchaic except Northern EnglandTo be frightened; also, to shudder with fear; to quake, to tremble.

   ["]I would have done Mr. Mordaunt's bidding too," he added, relaxing from his note of defiance, into the deferential whining tone with which he cajoled his customers, "if he hadna made use of profane oaths which made my very flesh grue, and caused me, in some sort, to forget myself."

   1822, [Walter Scott], The Pirate. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC, pages 111–112

plural grues

1. ScotlandA shiver, a shudder.

   A Grue of Ice

   1964, Geoffrey Jenkins, (title)

   2 more examples

   Upon all others the sight of Alison, were it but for a moment, cast a cold grue, not to be remembered without terror.

   1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide

   A cold grue went through me—I was unable to touch such a hand.

   1992, Alasdair Gray, Poor Things, Bloomsbury, published 2002, page 25

1. uncountableAny byproduct of a gruesome event, such as gore, viscera, entrails, blood and guts.

   There was grue everywhere after the accident

   5 more examples

   The butcher was covered in the accumulated grue of a hard day's work

   'I've told you - it wasn't much. He tried to kiss me.' She smiled slightly. 'Just after he had shown me the family skeletons.' / 'What a lovely bit of grue!'

   1958, Samuel Youd, writing as John Christopher, The Caves of Night

   1990, John DeChancie, Castle War! Incarnadine had to be quick with the sword. Huge wings flapped in time with explosions of grue, and the stink of burnt flesh and feathers filled the air.

   Carrie is Cinderella in the body language of menstrual blood and raging hormones. King’s adolescent joy in grimaces and groans, the Mad magazine humor, and the staple of “grue” hardly need mentioning.

   1996, Linda Badley, Writing Horror and the Body http://print.google.com/print?hl=en&id=iaHQorgoqd4C&pg=PA39&lpg=PA39&sig=0unz5oiZA5IURViNe75MsU7vHG4

   2002, Carole Nelson Douglas, Chapel Noir http://print.google.com/print?hl=en&id=ZZu4sl0P1EAC&pg=PA336&lpg=PA336&sig=dPR0ntE54xw-h3m6fByM0fgJiuc “… She is quite agreeable to gruesome ghost stories, but appalled by the lust for life.” / “I admit that I am surprised by how well she handles sheer grue, better than I.”

plural grues

1. A fictional man-eating predator that dwells in the dark.

   To find a grue, turn off the light at night, or go for a walk in a dark place (but carry a flashlight with you).

   2009, Jas, “Hazadous ^([sic]) Australian animals the GRUE.... your guide”, in rec.travel.australia+nz (Usenet)

   2 more examples

   I managed to get into the house through the front once, but I was plunged into darkness and eaten by a monster called a grue.

   1981, Byte, volume 6

   Incidentally, the best official text description I know of is in Sorcerer, when you actually become a grue and visit a grue colony. IIRC, even that description is vague, but does cannonize^([sic]) that they are large four-legged reptiles.

   2004, M.D. Dollahite, “How would you imagine a grue?”, in rec.games.int-fiction (Usenet)

1. not comparablehuman sciencesOf an object, green when first observed before a specified time or blue when first observed after that time.

   The unexamined emeralds cannot be both green and grue, since if they are grue and unexamined they are blue.

   2007, Michael Clark, Paradoxes from A to Z

   1 more example

   The grue property is defined as: x is grue if and only if x is green and is observed before the year 2000, or x is blue and is not observed before the year 2000.

   1965, Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction and Forecast

2. not comparablehuman sciencesOf a single color inclusive of both green and blue as different shades, used in translations from languages such as Old Welsh and Old Chinese that did not always distinguish between green and blue.

1. uncountablehuman sciencesThe property of being green when first observed before a specified time or blue when first observed after that time.

   Philosophers made their points with thought experiments—[…] the color grue; […]

   2001, Bruce Kuklick, “Conclusion”, in A History of Philosophy in America, 1720–2000, Oxford, Oxfordshire; New York, N.Y.: Clarendon Press, →ISBN, page 283

   2 more examples

   [T]he color grue would change in color. Colors do not do this; so ‘grue’ cannot be a color term.

   1994, Rita Nolan, “Discursive Practices”, in Cognitive Practices: Human Language and Human Knowledge, Oxford, Oxfordshire; Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, →ISBN, note 1, page 155

   We believe that among emeralds – perhaps among precious stones generally – whether something has the “color” grue is affected by discovery date, but whether it has the color green is not affected by discovery date.

   2001, Robert C. Pinto, “Inductive inferences and Goodman’s paradox”, in Argument, Inference and Dialectic: Collected Papers on Informal Logic (Argumentation Library; 4), Dordrecht; Norwell, Mass.: Kluwer Academic Publishers, →ISBN, chapter 9 (Logical form and the link between premisses and conclusion), footnote 38, page 92

2. uncountablehuman sciencesA single color inclusive of both green and blue as different shades, used in translations from languages such as Old Welsh and Old Chinese that did not always distinguish between green and blue.

   Well, as it turns out, there are a handful of cultures that see green and blue as shadings of one color: grue.

   1996 August 11, Jim Radeline, “Race theories all wrong”, in The Truth, 107th year, number 224, Elkhart, Ind.: Truth Publishing Co., →OCLC, page A6, column 6

   2 more examples

   Grue is the last of the composite categories that languages lose; hence its frequency. The transition to Stage V, where all basic color categories are primary, occurs when grue is replaced by its component primaries blue and green.

   1978 September, Paul Kay, Chad K. McDaniel, “The Linguistic Significance of the Meanings of Basic Color Terms”, in Language, volume 54, number 3, Washington, D.C.: Linguistic Society of America, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 631

   Our third hypothesis supposes that grue is based primarily on green but includes blues at lower membership. This hypothesis, the “skewed” grue, is illustrated in Figure 3d.

   1985, Don Burgess, Willett Kempton, Robert E. MacLaury, “Tarahumara Color Modifiers: Individual Variation and Evolutionary Change”, in Janet W. D. Dougherty, editor, Directions in Cognitive Anthropology, Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, →ISBN, page 58

1. slanguncountableNutraloaf, a bland mixture of foods served in prisons.

1. A municipality of Innlandet, Norway, formerly part of the county of Hedmark.