gruby

Gruby is a Polish adjective meaning thick or fat. It describes objects with substantial thickness, density, or volume, as well as people with a stout build. In neutral descriptive contexts it conveys size or shape, but when applied to a person it can carry pejorative or humorous connotations depending on tone and context.

In Polish, gruby inflects for gender, number, and case like other adjectives. The basic forms are gruby (masculine singular), gruba (feminine singular), grube (neuter singular), with corresponding plural forms. Its comparative form is grubszy and the superlative najgrubszy, used to express greater thickness or heft.

Gruby is common in everyday speech and writing. It can describe materials and surfaces—gruby materiał (thick material), gruba warstwa (thick layer)—as well as physical characteristics of people, for example a stout or heavy-set individual. The word is generally neutral when describing non-human nouns, but usage about people should consider potential offensiveness and context.

Etymology: gruby derives from the native Proto-Slavic root *grubъ meaning thick or coarse, with cognates in other Slavic languages such as Russian grubyy and Ukrainian hrubyy. The term has retained broad semantic range across modern Polish, spanning physical description to metaphorical or idiomatic uses.