grade grubber
1
8.6
- noun
- Offensive
:
pelota
- As a grade grubber, he spent countless hours trying to get every possible point on his assignments.
Examples
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Many students avoid being labeled as a grade grubber by focusing on learning instead of just test scores.
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You should never be a grade grubber.
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She was such a grade grubber that she often visited her teacher to ask for extra credit opportunities.
Synonyms
10
3.1
A student who gets special attention from the teacher
2
9.6
A person who flatters someone in power to get favors
A person who behaves very humbly to please others or avoid trouble
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
grade + grubber
Partly transparent: 'grade' is clear and the '-er' agentive pattern signals 'someone who does X', so a learner can plausibly infer 'someone who goes after grades'. However 'grubber' is informal/rare and depends on knowing the verb sense of 'grub' (to scrounge/seek greedily), which many B1 learners may not know, so the meaning is not fully predictable from the parts.
Etymology
Grade grubber may come from a simple image: grade is the mark you get and a grubber is someone who digs or grabs at food. One popular idea is that it pictures a student grabbing every little point or favour to raise their marks, so it means 'a student who is too eager to get high grades'.