Grot

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Dirt, filth or worthless rubbish, especially in a dingy or squalid place ; a small natural cave or shaded recess in a garden or hillside
2. Informal British term for filthy, dirty or worthless stuff ; an old poetic name for a cave or a little hollow set among rocks
3. Squalid dirt or junk that makes a place unpleasant ; a small cavern or secluded recess, often landscaped as a decorative feature

Etymology: "Grot" is a clipped form of "grotto," the word for a cave or cavelike recess, which came into English from Italian "grotta," itself descended from Latin "crypta." The shift from a cave to filth is not a sudden leap. Grottoes were often damp, dim, and cluttered, and that gloomy association seems to have fed into the slang sense of something squalid and dirty. The more recent history runs the other way. "Grot" in the sense of rubbish is a back-formation from "grotty," an adjective meaning squalid or shoddy, which was formed from "grot" and then, with a little reversal of direction, gave back a noun. So the word has been turned around: the shortened noun produced the adjective, and the adjective then produced the noun again.

Synonyms: rubbish, trash, filth, muck, dirt

Antonyms: cleanliness