/ · 1894 Brewer’s · G · Grub Street
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Since 1830 called Milton Street, near Moorfields, London, once famous for literary hacks and inferior literary productions. The word is the Gothic graban (to dig), whence Saxon grab (a grave) and groep (a ditch). (See Dunciad, i. 38, etc.)
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.