disgruntled
unhappy, disappointed, irritated (person)
TRANSLATION
disgruntled = verärgert, verstimmt, enttäuscht --- GOOGLE INDEX disgruntled: approximately 3,000,000 Google hits
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
Ramadi and Falluja have about one million people between them and the loss of these two key cities would embolden militants and DISGRUNTLED Sunni communities and threaten the unity of Iraq.
(BBC News)
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Hong Kong and Seoul followed Beijing in increasing taxi fares for the first time in years after DISGRUNTLED cab drivers complained they weren’t getting paid enough...
(BusinessWeek magazine)
(BBC News)
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Hong Kong and Seoul followed Beijing in increasing taxi fares for the first time in years after DISGRUNTLED cab drivers complained they weren’t getting paid enough...
(BusinessWeek magazine)
Did you
know?
disgruntled
adjective
- unhappy, annoyed, and disappointed about something
(Cambridge Dictionaries)
---
Disgruntled is a nice-sounding, but rather etymologically-complicated word. Officially, it is the past participle adjective form of the verb disgruntle, which in turn is from dis (entirely, very) + the obsolete gruntle (to complain about something in an annoyed way). Gruntle is a frequentative (denoting a verb or an affix with a meaning that involves repeated action) of the verb "grunt."
Going back even further, the verb grunt is from the noun grunt, which among other things refers to a deep guttural (produced at the back of the throat) sound. The verb grunt thus stems from this short, low sound, which is used instead of speaking, usually because of anger or pain (He grunted as he climbed over the fence).
The prefix "dis" is interesting in itself. It is mostly used to describe having a negative or opposite force, such as in disability (the lack of an ability), disbelief (not believable), dislike (not liking), disown (deny ownership of) or discontent (not content, unhappy).
In the case of disgruntled however, dis- means "very, exceedingly." Thus disgruntled essentially means to be very unhappy. This leads us to ask ourselves, can a person be just "gruntled?" Officially, yes. To confuse matters though, by removing the dis- prefix, gruntled takes on just the opposite meaning.
As the Cambridge Dictionary points out, gruntled is only used in a humorous sense to mean happy or satisfied. American comedian Kevin Nealon illustrated this very well in one of his routines when he said: "The workers insist that they are not disgruntled. They are very gruntled."
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SYNONYMS
annoyed, crabby, cranky, disappointed, discontent, dissatisfied, down in the dumps, downhearted, in a funk, irritated, malcontent, peeved, testy, unhappy, upset
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SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"We need to find out why the number of disgruntled customers is increasing."
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Thanks to Bernhard for suggesting today's word!
adjective
- unhappy, annoyed, and disappointed about something
(Cambridge Dictionaries)
---
Disgruntled is a nice-sounding, but rather etymologically-complicated word. Officially, it is the past participle adjective form of the verb disgruntle, which in turn is from dis (entirely, very) + the obsolete gruntle (to complain about something in an annoyed way). Gruntle is a frequentative (denoting a verb or an affix with a meaning that involves repeated action) of the verb "grunt."
Going back even further, the verb grunt is from the noun grunt, which among other things refers to a deep guttural (produced at the back of the throat) sound. The verb grunt thus stems from this short, low sound, which is used instead of speaking, usually because of anger or pain (He grunted as he climbed over the fence).
The prefix "dis" is interesting in itself. It is mostly used to describe having a negative or opposite force, such as in disability (the lack of an ability), disbelief (not believable), dislike (not liking), disown (deny ownership of) or discontent (not content, unhappy).
In the case of disgruntled however, dis- means "very, exceedingly." Thus disgruntled essentially means to be very unhappy. This leads us to ask ourselves, can a person be just "gruntled?" Officially, yes. To confuse matters though, by removing the dis- prefix, gruntled takes on just the opposite meaning.
As the Cambridge Dictionary points out, gruntled is only used in a humorous sense to mean happy or satisfied. American comedian Kevin Nealon illustrated this very well in one of his routines when he said: "The workers insist that they are not disgruntled. They are very gruntled."
---
SYNONYMS
annoyed, crabby, cranky, disappointed, discontent, dissatisfied, down in the dumps, downhearted, in a funk, irritated, malcontent, peeved, testy, unhappy, upset
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"We need to find out why the number of disgruntled customers is increasing."
---
Thanks to Bernhard for suggesting today's word!
