GRUDGE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does grudge mean? 

• GRUDGE (noun)
  The noun GRUDGE has 1 sense:

1. a resentment strong enough to justify retaliation

  Familiarity information: GRUDGE used as a noun is very rare.

• GRUDGE (verb)
  The verb GRUDGE has 2 senses:

1. bear a grudge; harbor ill feelings

2. accept or admit unwillingly

  Familiarity information: GRUDGE used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GRUDGE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A resentment strong enough to justify retaliation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

grievance; grudge; score

Context example:

settling a score

Hypernyms ("grudge" is a kind of...):

bitterness; gall; rancor; rancour; resentment (a feeling of deep and bitter anger and ill-will)

Derivation:

grudge (bear a grudge; harbor ill feelings)

• GRUDGE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they grudge    ... he / she / it grudges   
Past simple: grudged   
Past participle: grudged   
-ing form: grudging   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Bear a grudge; harbor ill feelings

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Synonyms:

grudge; stew

Hypernyms (to "grudge" is one way to...):

resent (feel bitter or indignant about)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

Derivation:

grudge (a resentment strong enough to justify retaliation)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Accept or admit unwillingly

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

"Grudge" entails doing...:

resent (feel bitter or indignant about)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

 Context examples 

He has a grudge against me.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I'll take a leaf out of her book, and try not only to seem glad, but to be so, and not grudge her one minute of happiness.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I have wandered here many days; the caves of ice, which I only do not fear, are a dwelling to me, and the only one which man does not grudge.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I don't mind acknowledging to you that I've got rather a grudging disposition, and want to keep off all intruders.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Now it was life he grudged.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Yes, I can work as hard as he can, and with as little grudging.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Her allowance is very liberal; nothing has ever been grudged for her improvement or comfort.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

You know that ’e ain’t to be overmuch depended on at any time, and that ’e ’ad a grudge against your man ’cause ’e laid ’im out in the coach-’ouse.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I have almost grudged myself my own prior knowledge of what you ought to have known before all the world.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I owe such a grudge to myself for the stupid, rascally folly of my own heart, that all my past sufferings under it are only triumph and exultation to me now.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)