A mixture of cement, sand, and water used to fill the spaces between tiles.
From Old French 'grout' meaning 'coarse meal' or 'porridge,' which came from a Germanic root meaning 'to grind.' The surprise is that grout was named after breakfast food! Medieval builders noticed that the thick, pasty mixture they used to fill gaps looked exactly like the coarse porridge (grout) that common people ate. The word literally means 'construction porridge' — builders were essentially saying their mortar looked like peasant food.
Medieval masons had a sense of humor — they named their gap-filling paste after the lumpy porridge that laborers ate for breakfast. Every time you see grout between bathroom tiles, you're looking at what builders thought resembled their morning meal, proving that construction workers have been making food jokes for over 600 years.
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