Grub Street

Grub Street is a literary term for cheap, hurried writing done mainly for money rather than artistic quality or original thought. It comes from the name of a London street once associated with struggling writers and pamphleteers, and it came to stand for hack work in poetry and prose alike.

When used in criticism, the phrase often suggests work that is formulaic, padded, or produced under pressure for a market rather than for lasting merit.

Example

He wrote for Grub Street, churning out rhymes for coin,
while his truer poems waited, folded in a drawer.

Related Definitions

[n] the world of literary hacks

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