The word grub has been used as a colloquial synonym tor food since the mid seventeenth century, but long before that, dating back to the fourteenth century, it was used as a verb meaning to dig. This original dig sense of the word probably inspired its later food sense: root vegetables, such as potatoes or turnips, had to be “grubbed” out of the ground, prompting people to call such vegetables grub, a usage later extended to any sort of food. (This “earthy” origin oigrub also accounts for expressions such as, “I’ll dig up some grub”.) The insect larvae known as grubs get their name for a similar reason: they too dig their way through the soil. The ultimate source otgrub was an Indo-European word, pronounced something like ghrobh, that also evolved into the word grave (a burial place dug into the earth) and groove (a channel dug into a surface). Centuries after appearing in English, groove inspired people to exhort one another to “Get in the groove,” an expression that led to groovy, the epitome of hippie slang.