Noun

1. Deep-seated animosity or ill-feeling about something or someone.

   to hold a grudge against someone

   to have a grudge against someone

   to bear a grudge against someone

   • 1607, Barnabe Barnes, THE DIVILS CHARTER: A TRAGÆDIE Conteining the Life and Death of Pope Alexander the ſixt, ACTVS. 5, SCÆ. 1:

     Bag. And if I do not my good Lord damme me for it

     I haue an old grudge at him cole black curre,

     He ſhall haue two ſteele bullets ſtrongly charg’d

   • 1879, Henry James, The American, Rinehart, page 288:

     I have never mentioned it to a human creature ; I have kept my grudge to myself. I daresay I have been wicked, but my grudge has grown old with me.

   • 2001, H. Rider Haggard, All Adventure: Child of Storm/a Tale of Three Lions, Essential Library (xLibris), page 274:

     It is towards Saduko that he bears a grudge, for you know, my father, one should never pull a drowning man out of the stream — which is what Saduko did, for had it not been for his treachery, Cetewayo would have sunk beneath the water of Death — especially if it is only to spite a woman who hates him.

Verb

1. To be unwilling to give or allow.

   I don't grudge him his success.

   His cruel master grudged him even the food he ate.

   I grudge paying ten pounds for a bottle of wine which isn't worth five pounds.

   • 1608, Henrie Gosson, The Woefull and Lamentable wast and spoile done by a suddaine Fire in S. Edmonds-bury in Suffolke, on Munday the tenth of Aprill. 1608., reprinted by F. Pawsey, Old Butter Market, Ipswich, 1845, page 6:

     Wee shall finde our whole life so necessarily ioyned with sorrow, that we ought rather delight (and take pleasure) in Gods louing chastisements, and admonitions, then any way murmure and grudge at our crosses, or tribulations :

   • 1841, Edmund Burke, The Annual Register, Rivingtons, page 430:

     If we of the central land were to grudge you what is beneficial, and not to compassionate your wants, then wherewithal could you foreigners manage to exist?

   • 2001, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment, Digital Scanning Inc, page 62:

     Of course, his interest in the war and in the regiment was unbounded; he did not take to drill with especial readiness, but was insatiable of it, and grudged every moment of relaxation.