One way to hold grubby: a thin layer you cannot name. Not mud, not a stain you could point at — just a dull film left by hands, dust and time, the sort that makes you want to wash before you touch anything else.

「grubby」可以想成附在東西表面的一層說不上名字的灰。不是泥巴,也不是某一塊你指得出來的污漬,就是手、灰塵和時間留下來的一層黯淡。看到它,你會想先去洗個手再碰別的東西。這個字的幾個用法,都像從這層灰長出來:有時候是真的在衣服上,有時候搬到了行為上,有時候則是最老實的字面——裡面真的有蟲。

From the word’s history

Wiktionary derives grubby from grub plus -y. A grub is an insect larva, the soft thing turned up in soil, and grub is also the digging itself. The word therefore starts close to earth and larvae, which fits the film-of-dirt picture the adjective still carries.

依證據,grubby 來自 grub 加上 -y。grub 是土裡的幼蟲,也指「翻土、挖」這個動作;-y 表示「帶著…的」。所以這個字從一開始就離泥土和蟲很近,跟形容詞今天那層「灰灰的髒」相當合得來。

Wiktionary 'grubby' etymology_text supplied in this evidence packet (source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:1232031366:14231)

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