Meaning

noun the short low gruff noise of the kind made by hogs

noun an unskilled or low-ranking soldier or other worker

noun medium-sized tropical marine food fishes that utter grunting sounds when caught

originFrom Middle English grunten, from Old English grunnettan (“to grunt”), from Proto-West Germanic *grunnattjan, from Proto-Germanic *grunnatjaną (“to grunt”), frequentative of Proto-Germanic *grunnōną (“to grunt”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrun- (“to shout”). Cognate with German grunzen (“to grunt”), Danish grynte (“to grunt”). The noun senses are all instances of zero derivation from the verb.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0