Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also grunt, gruntler, gruntling) a (sucking) pig or hog.

1612		Dekker O per se O L3: Why should Grunters (Pigges) goe whining out of the worlde, hauing their throates cut by Roagues.
1621		Jonson Gypsies Metamorphosed 4: Where the Cacklers but no Grunters / Shall vncasd be for the Hunters.
1641		R. Brome Jovial Crew II i: Here’s Grunter and Bleater, with Tib-of-the-Buttry, / And Margery Prater, all dress’d without sluttry.
1669		A Perfect Narrative of the Robbery [etc] 38: That these kind of persons are reported to have a Canting Language amongst themselves; as when they say take Coach, is meant cut a Throat; take Horse, take a Purse; Mill a Gruntling, steal a Pigg, &c.
1688		R. Holme Academy of Armory Ch. iii item 68c: Canting Terms used by Beggars, Vagabonds, Cheaters, Cripples and Bedlams. [...] Grunters, Pigs.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Grunter, c. a Sucking Pig.
1700		N. Ward A Frolic to Horn-Fair 13: Directly over it [...] lay the Grunter on a Grid-Iron.
1708		J. Hall Memoirs (1714) 12: Gruntler, a Pig.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1728		Defoe Street Robberies Considered 32: Grunt, a Hog.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. 1725].
1753		J. Poulter Discoveries (1774) 43: A Buffer and a Grunter; a Dog and a Hog.
c.1783		‘Tippy Jack’s Journey to Brighton’ in Holloway & Black I (1975) 264: I had paid the butcher two pounds, seven shillings and three pence three-farthings, for the loss of his grunter.
1793		Bacchanalian Mag. 58: ‘No grunter’s truer to his stye, / Than is your dustman, Billy’.
1800		‘Poll and my Partner Joe’ in A Garland of New Songs (10) 2: My grunter in the sty.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1826		Cumberland Pacquet 12 Dec. 4/4: I sing the pitmen’s plagues and cares / [...] / On cock fight, dog fight, cuddy race / Or on a soap-tail’d grunters chase, / They’ll risk the last remaining doit.
1827		P. Cunningham New South Wales II 260: This joker, who would [...] praise the wonderful expertise with which he had done the farmers out of their grunters.
1832		‘Battle of the Pigs’ in Quid 170: Out pour’d the Tribe of Grunters.
1834		(con. 1737–9) W.H. Ainsworth Rookwood (1857) 304: I could almost devour a grunter in the sty.
1841		Comic Almanack June 266: The squeaking grunter is loose on the green.
1843		Bellew Memoirs of a Griffin I 211: I could distinguish the deep bass of a grunter, with the running treble of sundry little pigs.
1845		E.J. Wakefield Adventure in N.Z. I 319: Pigs and potatoes were respectively represented by ‘grunters’ and ‘spuds’.
1845		Bell’s Life in Sydney 11 Oct. 2/5: The grunter was introduced, and greeted with three cheers.
1855		Bell’s Life in Sydney 10 Mar. 2/6: A greasy-looking individual [...] as fat as a prize grunter.
1859		G.F. Atkinson Curry & Rice (3 edn) n.p.: Caesar and his immediate followers devote their undivided attention to an aggrieved grunter.
1860		Bell’s Life in Sydney 16 June 4/2: An old woman, in describing a fat grunter [...] said it was ‘a great, big, black, ebony, fat, broadbackit [.,,] animal’.
1895		Essex Standard 28 Dec. 7/2: I went in with a pail and some meal for the grunters.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Jan. 14/4: [A]s each settler owned about two acres of land and half-a-dozen pigs, the assaults and batteries and ‘coort’ cases caused by the depredations of Hoolahan’s ‘grunters’ upon Riley’s potato-patch may readily be imagined.
1911		S. Bourke & Mornington Jrnl (Vic.) 5 Oct. 4/2: [headline] A Mortally Disgruntled Grunter. Leonard Wagstaff was charged [...] with wound a pig.
1923		Morn. Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld) 29 Oct. 8/4: The owner and his satellites were now vowing vengeance on the grunter. the latter was defiant.
1932		Queenslander (Brisbane) 25 Feb. 16/4: A hose and brush soon had the grunter spick-and-span.
1936		(con. 1830s–60s) ‘Miles Franklin’ All That Swagger 263: The sty full of grunters.
1943		Western mail (Perth) 22 July 20/2: As pig-meat prices seem to be assured [...] the old grunter is again well to the fore.
1957		D. Niland Call Me When the Cross Turns Over (1958) 27: There was nothing to do but feed grunters.
1967		J. Wynnum I’m a Jack, All Right 46: I would like to go on a pig-shoot [...] There’s one or two grunters in the dockyard I’d like to take a bead on.
1994		M. Jolley [bk title] Grunter, a pig with attitude.

2. a shilling (5p) [play on hog n. (1a)].

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1794		Sporting Mag. June IV 180/2: No grunters in the clye.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1821		Flash Dict.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict. 17: Grunter – a bob, shilling.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open [as cit. 1835].
c.1850		Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict.

3. (also half a grunter) sixpence (5p).

1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant n.p.: Half a grunter sixpence.
1821		Flash Dict.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict. 17: Half a grunter – sixpence.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
c.1850		Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict.
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 267: He had been out all day on the ‘monkry,’ and had only taken three ‘twelvers’ and a ‘grunter’.
1885		Household Words 20 June 155: The sixpence... is variously known as a ‘pig,’ a ‘sow’s baby,’ a grunter, and ‘half a hog’ [F&H].

4. a police officer, a country constable [play on pig n. (2a)].

1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 257: pigs, or grunters police runners.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1833		H. Smith Gale Middleton 1 161: What noise is that? I thought I heard a grunter.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum 39: grunter A country constable.
1881		Trumble Sl. Dict. (1890).
1967		J. Wynnum I’m a Jack, All Right 10: [of a naval officer] He’s got millionaire’s tastes the same as the rest of the grunters.
1999		Guardian Guide 6–12 Nov. 4: That fat old plain-clothes grunter.

5. (US und.) an ageing prostitute.

1863

Criminal Life (NY) 19 Dec. n.p.: Swine are not allowed within the limits of the city [...] why is old Jane Winslow allowed to harbor such trashy old grunters as Rose (French for Biddie) Brady, Dutch Maria and Charity Julie?

6. pork.

1887

G. Davis Recoll. Sea-Wanderer 289: There are other terms in common use in the cabin and cook's galley [...] Pork was grunter, and mutton, when we had any, was simply mutton.

7. (US) a cooked pig’s foot.

1896

Sun (NY) 28 Mar. 2/6: ‘Gimme a Trilby foot’ means ‘Pass me a fried pig’s foot’. The same deasire is expressed in a request for a ‘grunter’ or a ‘squealer’.

8. (Aus.) one who complains.

1900

Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 3 Oct. 1/4: They’d show ’em, the grunters, the Punterville punters, / A point that would properly double ’em up.

9. (Aus.) a Boer soldier.

1901

Bulletin (Sydney) 12 Oct. 36/2: An’ I was jus’ goin’ up the ’ill when I spots a grunter, an’ I into ’im and turns ’im a turkey, third pop. But there was nothin’ in ’is pockets but some bloomin’ mealy.

10. an automobile, a steam engine.

1908		A.N. Lyons Arthur’s 19: I see a traction engine comin’ up the road, sweatin’ and groanin’ [...] it seemed to me that before the silly old grunter could reach me I should be grey-’aired.
1923		J. Manchon Le Slang.

11. (Aus.) a prostitute; a promiscuous girl or woman [? the (simulated) grunts of passion with which she embellishes her services].

1969		A. Buzo Rooted II iii: I’ll line up a bird for you, too. I know a couple of grunters.
1985		Tracks (Aus.) Oct. 82: The guys who started Tracks fifteen years ago used to talk about the Collaroy grunter [grunter = ‘a woman who readily fucks’] [Moore 1993].
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 94: grunter Promiscuous woman or prostitute, from anticipated noise. ANZ c1940.

12. an old person out of sympathy with current youth enthusiasms [their grunts of complaint].

2000

The Noble NoZe Brotherhood NoZe Brotherhood 75:3 🌐 I better, hey, hey, hey, pump thought iron before the old grunter sees which way the wind blows in this neck dome.