WITH SYNONYMS IN ENGLISH, FRENCH, GERMAN, ITALIAN, ETC. (continued 7)

Grape-shot, adj. (common).—Drunk. For synonyms, see Drinks and Screwed.

Grape-vine, subs. (American).—A hold in wrestling.

Grape-vine Telegraph, subs. phr. (American).—News mysteriously conveyed. [During the Civil War bogus reports from the front were said to be by the Grape-vine Telegraph.] Also Clothes-line Telegraph.

Grapple, subs. (common).—The hand. Also grappler. For synonyms, see Daddle and Mauley.

1852. Hazel, Yankee Jack, p. 9. Give us your grappler on that, old fellow.

1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 246. Anything she once put her grapples on she slipped inside.

Grapple-the-rails, subs. (Irish).—Whiskey. For synonyms, see Drinks and Old Man’s Milk.

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue. Grapple-the-rails, a cant name used in Ireland for whiskey.

Grappling-irons (or -hooks), subs. (old).—1. Handcuffs. For synonyms, see Darbies.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.

1830. Buckstone, Wreck Ashore, i., 4. I hope the bailiffs have not laid their grappling irons on young Miles.

2. (nautical).—The fingers. For synonyms, see Fork. Also Grapplers and Grappling-Hooks.

Grass, subs. (Royal Military Academy).—1. Vegetables. Cf., bunny-grub. Fr., gargousses de la canonnière.

2. (American).—Fresh mint.

3. (common).—Short for sparrow-grass (q.v.) = asparagus.

1851–61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab and Lond. Poor, I., 539. He sold grass, and such things as cost money.

4. (Australian printers’).—A temporary hand on a newspaper; hence the proverb, ‘a grass on news waits dead men’s shoes.’ Cf., Grass-hand = a raw worker, or green hand.

a. 1889. Fitzgerald, Printers’ Proverbs, quoted in Slang, Jargon, and Cant. Why are the grass, or casual news hands not put on a more comfortable footing?

Verb (pugilistic).—To throw (or be thrown); to bring (or be brought) to ground. Hence, to knock down; to defeat; to kill.

1818. Egan, Boxiana, ii., 375. He had much the worst of it, and was ultimately grassed.

1819. Moore, Tom Crib, p. 57. The shame that aught but death should see him grassed.

1846. Dickens, Dombey, xliv., 385. The Chicken himself attributed this punishment to his having had the misfortune to get into Chancery early in the proceedings, when he was severely fibbed by the Larkey One, and heavily grassed.

1881. Daily Telegraph, 26 Nov. The Doctor had killed twenty out of twenty-five, while his opponent had grassed seventeen out of the same number.

1883. W. Besant, All in a Garden Fair. Intro. It was a sad example of pride before a fall; his foot caught in a tuft of grass, and he was grassed.

1888. Sporting Life, 11 Dec. Just on the completion of the minute grassed his man with a swinging right-hander.

1891. J. Newman, Scamping Tricks, p. 119. I saw I was grassed, so I took his measurement.

1892. F. Anstey, Voces Populi. ‘The Riding-Class,’ p. 108. Didn’t get grassed, did you?

To give grass, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To yield.

To go to grass, verb. phr. (colloquial).—1. To abscond; to disappear. Also to hunt grass.

2. (common).—To fall sprawling; to be ruined; to die.

1876. Hindley, Cheap Jack, p. 237. Elias was sent to grass to rise no more off it.

3. (common).—To waste away (as of limbs).

To hunt grass, verb. phr. (common).—1. To decamp.

2. (cricket).—To field; to hunt leather (q.v.).

3. (American). To fall; to go to ground; hence, to be puzzled or bewildered.

1869. S. L. Clemens, Innocents at Home, p. 21. You’re most too many for me, you know. When you get in with your left I hunt grass every time.

To cut one’s own grass. verb. phr. (thieves’).—To earn one’s own living.

1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 242. ‘Cut her own grass! Good gracious! what is that!’ I asked. ‘Why, purvide her own chump—earn her own living,’ the old man replied.

To be sent to grass. verb. phr. (University).—To be rusticated; to receive a travelling scholarship (q.v.).

1794. Gent. Mag., p. 1085. And was very near rustication [at Cambridge] merely for kicking up a row after a beakering party. ‘Soho, Jack!’ briskly rejoined another, ‘almost presented with a travelling fellowship? very nigh being sent to grass, hey?’

Go to grass! phr. (common).—Be off! You be hanged! Go to hell!

1848. Durivage, Stray Subjects, p. 95. A gentleman who was swimming about, upon being refused, declared that he might go to grass with his old canoe, for he didn’t think it would be much of a shower, anyhow.

1865. Bacon, Handbook of America, p. 363. Go to grass! be off! get out!

To let the grass grow under one’s feet, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To proceed or work leisurely. Fr., limer.

To take Nebuchadnezzar out to grass, subs. phr. (venery).—To take a man. [Nebuchadnezzar = penis.] For synonyms, see Greens.

Grass-comber, subs. (nautical).—A countryman shipped as a sailor.

1886. W. Besant, World Went Very Well Then, ch. xxix. Formerly, Jack would have replied to this sally that, d’ye see, Luke was a grass comber and a land swab, but that for himself, there was no tea aboard ship, and a glass of punch or a bowl of flip was worth all the tea ever brought from China.

Grasser, subs. (sporting).—A fall.

Grasshopper, subs. (common).—1. A waiter at a tea-garden.

2. (rhyming).—A policeman, or copper (q.v.).

3. (thieves’).—A thief. See Gunner.

1893. Pall Mall Gaz., 2 Jan., p. 4., c. 3. Quite a ‘school’ of youthful grasshoppers are in possession of one corner of the ice, but on the Westminster side of the park ’pon bridge there is a good sprinkling of old hands.

Grassing, subs. (printers’).—Casual work away from the office. See Smouting.

Grassville, subs. (old).—The country; cf., Daisyville.

Grass-widow, subs. (old).—1. An unmarried mother; a deserted mistress. See Barrack-hack and Tart.

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. Widow’s weeds, a grass-widow, one that pretends to have been married, but never was, yet has children.

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. Widow’s weeds; a grass-widow; a discarded mistress.

2. (colloquial).—A married woman temporarily separated from her husband.

[The usually accepted derivation that grass = Fr., grâce is doubtful. Hall (says J. C. Atkinson, in Glossary of Cleveland Words) gives as the definition of this word ‘an unmarried woman who has had a child’; in Moor’s Suffolk Words and Phrases, grace-widow, ‘a woman who has had a child for her cradle ere she has had a husband for her bed’; and corresponding with this is the N. S. or Low Ger., gras-wedewe. Again, Sw. D., gras-anka, or -enka = grass-widow, occurs in the same sense as with us: ‘a low, dissolute, unmarried woman living by herself.’ The original meaning of the word seems to have been ‘a woman whose husband is away,’ either travelling or living apart. The people of Belgium call a woman of this description haeck-wedewe, from haecken, to feel strong desire.… It seems probable, therefore, from the etymology, taken in connection with the Clevel. signification, that our word may rather be from the Scand. source than from the German; only with a translation of the word enka into its English equivalent. Dan. D., graesenka, is a female whose betrothed lover (fastman) is dead; nearly equivalent to which is German, strohwittwe, literally straw-widow. See N. and Q. 6 S. viii., 268, 414; x. 333, 436, 526; xi. 78, 178.]

English Synonyms.—Californian widow; widow-bewitched; wife in water colours.

1700. Congreve, Way of the World, Act iii. If the worst come to the worst,—I’ll turn my wife to grass—I have already a deed of settlement of the best part of her estate, which I wheedl’d out of her.

1877. Chamb. Journal, 12 Mar., p. 173. Mrs. Brittomart was one of those who never tolerated a bow-wow—a species of animal well known in India—and never went to the hills as a grass-widow.

1878. London, a grass-widow. And so, you see, it comes to pass That she’s a widow out at grass And happy in her freedom.

1882. Saturday Review, 11 Feb. She is a grass-widow, her husband is something in some Indian service.

1885. W. Black, White Heather, ch. xli. Mrs. Lalor, a grass-widow who was kind enough to play chaperon to the young people, but whose effective black eyes had a little trick of roving on their own account.

1889. Daily Telegraph, 12 Feb. She had taken up her residence at a house in Sinclair-road, Kensington, where she passed as a grass-widow. She represented that her husband was engaged in mercantile pursuits.

Grass-widower, subs. (common).—A man away from his wife.

1886. New York Evening Post, 22 May. All the grass-widowers and unmarried men.

Gravel, verb. (old).—1. To confound; to puzzle; to floor (q.v.).

1593. G. Harvey, Pierus Supererog, in wks. II., 296. The finest intelligencer, or sagest Politician in a state, would undoubtedly have been gravelled in the execution of that rash attempt.

1597. Hall, Satires, III., vi., 14. So long he drinks, till the black caravell Stands still fast gravelled on the mud of hell.

1600. Shakspeare, As You Like It. When you were gravelled for lack of matter.

1604. Marlowe, Faustus, Act i., Sc. 1. And I, that have with concise syllogisms gravell’d the pastors of the German church.

1659. Torriano, Vocabulario, s.v.

1667. Dryden, Sir Martin Marr-all, Act iii. Warn. He’s gravelled, and I must help him out.

1663. Dryden, An Evening’s Love, Act ii. A difficult question in that art, which almost gravels me.

1857. A. Trollope, Three Clerks, ch. xxxiv. He was somewhat gravelled for an answer to Alaric’s earnest supplication, and therefore made none till the request was repeated.

1886. R. L. Stevenson, Kidnapped, p. 206. I thought Alan would be gravelled at that, for we lacked the means of writing in that desert.

1893. National Observer, 11 Feb., p. 321. In truth to talk of Burns as the apotheosis of Knox is really to gravel and confound your readers; and but for the context one might be suspected that the innuendo hid a touch of sarcasm.

2. (American).—To go against the grain.

1887. Clemens, Life on the Mississippi, ch. xiv., p. 138. By long habit, pilots came to put all their wishes in the form of commands. It gravels me to this day, to put my will in the weak shape of a request, instead of launching it in the crisp language of an order.

Gravel-crusher, subs. (military).—A soldier doing defaulter’s drill.

Gravel-grinder, subs. (popular).—A drunkard. For synonyms, see Lushington.

Gravel-rash, subs. (colloquial).—The lacerations caused by a fall.

To have the gravel rash, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To be reeling drunk. For synonyms, see Drinks and Screwed.

Gravesend-bus, subs. (common).—A hearse.

Gravesend-sweetmeats, subs. (popular).—Shrimps.

Gravesend-twins, subs. (common).—Solid particles of sewage.

Grave-yard, subs. (common).—1. The mouth. For synonyms, see Potato-trap.

To keep a private grave-yard, verb. phr. (American).—To affect ferocity; to bluster.

Gravy, subs. (venery).—The sexual discharge; the spendings (q.v.) both male and female. [Hence gravy-giver = the penis and the female pudendum; and gravy-maker = the female pudendum. Hence, too, to give one’s gravy = to spend (q.v.). Cf., Beef and Mutton.]

d. 1796. Burns, ‘Dainty Davie,’ in Merry Muses. I wot he cam atween my thie, An’ creeshed it weel wi’ gravy.

Gravy-eye, subs. (common).—A derisive epithet: e.g., Well Old gravy-eye.

Grawler, subs. (old).—A beggar. For synonyms, see Cadger.

1821. D. Haggart, Life, Glossary p. 62. Not so much as would sweeten a grawler in the whole of them.

Gray, subs. (thieves’).—1. A coin showing either two heads or two tails; a pony (q.v.).

1828. G. Smeeton, Doings in London, p. 40. Breslaw could never have done more upon cards than he could do with a pair of grays (gaffing-coins).

1851–61. H. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, Vol. II., p. 154. Some, if they can, will cheat, by means of a half-penny with a head or a tail on both sides, called a gray.

1868. Temple Bar, Vol. XXIV., p. 539. They have a penny with two heads or two tails on it, which they call a grey, and of course they can easily dupe flats from the country. How do they call it a grey, I wonder? I suppose they have named it after Sir George Grey because he was a two-faced bloke.

2. (common).—See Grayback, sense 1.

3. in. pl. (colloquial).—Yawning; listlessness. Cf., Blues.

Grayback, subs. (common).—1. A louse. Also Scots Greys. Fr., un grenadier. For synonyms, see Chates.

2. (American).—A Confederate soldier. [Partly from the colour of his uniform, and partly because of its inhabitants. Cf., sense 1.] See Blue-bellies.

1883. Daily Telegraph, 9 Feb., p. 5, c. 4. The Confederate armies, during the great Civil War in America … were known … as Greybacks, whereas their Federal opponents, from the light-azure gaberdines which they wore, were dubbed ‘blue-bellies.’

1890. Scribner’s Mag. Mar., p. 283. Mrs. Rutherford stood in such abject fear of the graybacks that she regarded the possession of so large a sum as simply inviting destruction.

Gray-beard, subs. (colloquial).—1. An old man. Mostly in contempt.

1593. Shakspeare, Taming of the Shrew, Act ii., Sc. 1. Grey-beard, thy love doth freeze.

a. 1845. Longfellow, Luck of Eden Hall. The gray-beard, with trembling hand obeys.

2. (old).—Originally a stoneware drinking jug; now a large earthenware jar for holding wine or spirits. [From the bearded face in relief with which they were ornamented.]

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, Grey-beard, s.v. Dutch earthen jugs, used for smuggling gin on the coasts of Essex and Suffolk, are at this time called grey-beards.

1814. Scott, Waverley, ch. lxiv. There’s plenty of brandy in the grey-beard.

1886. The State, 20 May, p. 217. A whisky or brandy which is held in merited respect for very superior potency is entitled [in America] ‘reverent,’ from the same kind of fancy which led the Scotch to call a whisky jar a grey-beard.

Gray-cloak, subs. (common).—An alderman above the chair. [Because his proper robe is a cloak furred with grey amis.]

Gray-goose, subs. (Scots’).—A big field stone on the surface of the ground.

1816. Scott, Black Dwarf, ch. iv. Biggin a dry-stane dyke, I think, wi’ the grey-geese as they ca’ thae great loose stones.

Grayhound, subs. (general).—1. A fast Atlantic liner; one especially built for speed. Also ocean grayhound.

1887. Scientific American, vol. LVI., 2. They [ships] are built in the strongest possible manner, and are so swift of foot, as to have already become formidable rivals to the English grey hound.

2. (Cambridge University).—An obsolete name for a member of Clare College; a clarian.

1889. Whibley, Cap and Gown, xxviii. The members of Clare … were called grayhounds.

Gray-mare, subs. (common).—A wife; specifically one who wears the breeches (q.v.). [From the proverb, ‘The gray mare is the better horse’ = the wife is master: a tradition, perhaps, from the time when priests were forbidden to carry arms or ride on a male horse: Non enim licuerat pontificem sacrorum vel arma ferre, vel praeter quam in equâ equitare.—Beda, Hist. Eccl. ii., 13. Fr., mariage d’epervier = a hawk’s marriage: the female hawk being the larger and stronger bird. Lord Macaulay’s explanation (quot. 1849) is the merest guess-work.]

1546. John Haywood, Proverbs [Sharman’s reprint, 1874]. She is (quoth he) bent to force you perforce, To know that the grey mare is the better horse.

1550. A Treatyse, Shewing and Declaring the Pryde and Abuse of Women Now a Dayes (in Hazlitt’s Early Popular Poetry, iv., 237). What! shall the graye mayre be the better horse, And be wanton styll at home?

1605. Camden, Remains Concerning Britain [ed. 1870, p. 332]. In list of proverbs. (Is said to be the earliest in English.)

1670. Ray, Proverbs, s.v.

1698–1750. Ward, London Spy, part II., p. 40. Another as dull as if the grey mare was the better Horse; and deny’d him Enterance for keeping late Hours.

1705–1707. Ward, Hudibras Redivivus, vol. II., pt. iv., p. 5. There’s no resisting Female Force, Grey mare will prove the better Horse.

1717. Prior, Epilogue to Mrs. Manley’s Lucius. As long as we have eyes, or hands, or breath, We’ll look, or write, or talk you all to death. Yield, or she-Pegasus will gain her course, And the grey mare will prove the better horse.

1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., p. 240. For the grey mare has proved the better horse.

1738. Swift, Polite Convers., dial. 3. I wish she were married; but I doubt the gray mare would prove the better horse.

1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, ch. xix. By the hints they dropped, I learned the gray mare was the better horse—that she was a matron of a high spirit.

1819. Macaulay, Hist. England. The vulgar proverb, that the grey mare is the better horse, originated, I suspect, in the preference generally given to the grey mares of Flanders over the finest coach horses of England.

1883. G. A. S[ala], in Illustr. London News, 14 Apr., p. 359, c. 2. She [Mrs. Romford], did not over-accentuate either her strong-mindedness or her jealousy of her flighty husband; but she let him and the audience unmistakably know that she was in all respects the grey mare in the Romford stable.

Gray-parson (or Gray-coat parson), subs. (old).—A lay impropriator, or lessee of tithes.

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, grey parson, s.v. A farmer who rents the tythes of the rector or vicar.

1830 in Cobbett’s Rural Rides, vol. I., p. 123 note (ed. 1886). The late editor says, that, having been a large holder of lay tithes, the author applied to Mr. Nicholls, the name of the grey-coated parson.

Grease, subs. (common).—1. A bribe; palm-oil (or -grease). (q.v. for synonyms). In America Boodle (q.v.). greasing = bribing.

1823. Bee, Dict. of Turf, s.v. A bonus given to promote the cause of anyone.

2. (printers’).—Well-paid work; fat (q.v.).

3. (common).—Fawning; flattery (a figurative use of sense 1).

Verb (old).—1. To bribe; to corrupt by presents; to tip (q.v.). Also more fully to grease in the fist, hand, or palm. Fr., coquer la boucanade. For synonyms, see Square.

1557. Tusser, Husbandrie, ch. 68, pt. 2, p. 159 (E.D.S.). How husbandrie easeth, to huswiferie pleaseth, And manie purse greaseth With silver and gold.

1578. Whetstone, Promoss and Cassandra, ii., 3. Grease them well in their hands.

1592. Greene, Quip, in wks., xi., 261. That did you not grease the sealers of Leaden Hall throughly in the fist, they should never be sealed, but turned away and made forfiet by the statute.

1619. Fletcher, Wild Goose Chase. Am I greased once again?

1649. F. Quarles, Virgin Widow, IV., i., p. 40. Greaze my fist with a Tester or two, and ye shall find it in your penny-worths.

1678. C. Cotton, Scarronides, Bk. IV., p. 70 (ed. 1725). Him she conjures, intreats, and prays, With all the Cunning that she has, greases his Fist; nay more, engages Thenceforth to mend his Quarters-wages.

1693. Dryden, Persius, iii., 139. And after, envy not the store Of the greas’d advocate, that grinds the poor.

1698–1700. Ward, London Spy, pt. xv., p. 364. But the Gay Curteyan who trades for gold, That can but grease a palm when she’s in hold, No Justice need she dread.

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

1878. Jas. Payn, By Proxy, ch. x. His Excellency, your master, has given orders, I presume, that after I have made my compliments—as delicate a phrase as he could think of for greasing the hands of justice—I shall be at liberty to visit my friend.

1879. Horsley, in Macmillan’s Magazine, Oct. When I went to the fence he bested (cheated) me because I was drunk, and only gave me £8 10s. for the lot. So the next day I went to him and asked him if he was not going to grease my duke (put money into my hand).

1891. Pall Mall Gaz., 2 Sept., p. 7, c. 2. Did other people having business with the printing bureau tell you that it would be necessary to grease Sénécal?

2. (common).—To fawn; to flatter. Formerly, to grease one’s boots.

1598. Florio, A Worlde of Wordes. Onger i stivali, to grease ones bootes, id est, to flatter or cog with, to faune vpon one.

3. (old).—To gull; to cheat; to do.

To grease a fat sow in the arse, verb. phr. (old).—To bribe a rich man.—Grose.

To grease one’s gills, verb. phr. (common).—To make a good or luxurious meal.

Greased Lightning, subs. phr. (American).—An express train.

1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 359. The usual Express Train is not half fast enough for the impatient traveller; he must have his Lightning Express Train, and in the Far West improves still farther by calling it greased lightning, after a favourite Yankee term.

Like Greased Lightning, adv. phr. (American).—Very quick. See Bed-post.

1848. Durivage, Stray Subjects, p. 72. Quicker than greased lightnin’, My covies, I was dead.

1890. Globe, 27 Aug., p. 2, c. 5. He is drawn along at a rapid rate, or, as the correspondent puts it, he is whisked all over town like greased lightning.

1891. J. Newman, Scamping Tricks, p. 98. He measured again, and then off went his coat like greased lightning, and we all followed suit.

Greaser, subs. (American).—1. A Mexican in general; also a Spanish American: see quots. 1848 and 1888. The term originated during the Mexican war.

1848. Ruxton, Life in the Far West, p. 3. Note. The Mexicans are called Spaniards or greasers (from their greasy appearance) by the Western people.

1855. Marryat, Mountains and Mole Hills, p. 236. The Americans call the Mexicans greasers, which is scarcely a complimentary soubriquet; although the term greaser camp as applied to a Mexican encampment is truthfully suggestive of filth and squalor.

1876. Besant and Rice, Golden Butterfly, Prologue i. Behind the leaders followed a little troop of three, consisting of one English servant and two greasers.

1883. Bret Harte, In the Carquinez Woods, footnote to ch. vii. Greasers, Californian slang for a mixed race of Mexicans and Indians.

1888. Century Mag., October. To avenge the murder of one of their number the cowboys gathered from the country round about, and fairly stormed the greaser—that is, Mexican—village where the murder had been committed, killing four of the inhabitants.

1891. Gunter, Miss Nobody, ch. 2. Don’t let the greaser git his fingers in your ha’r.

2. in. pl. (Royal Military Academy).—Fried potatoes, as distinguished from boilers = boiled potatoes.

To give one greaser, verb. phr. (Winchester College).—To rub the back of the hand hard with the knuckles.

Grease-spot, subs. (common).—The imaginary result of a passage at arms, physical or intellectual.

1844. Haliburton, The Attaché, ch. xvi. If he hadn’t a had the clear grit in him, and showed his teeth and claws, they’d a nullified him so you wouldn’t see a grease-spot of him no more.

Greasy-chin, subs. (old).—A dinner.

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends, ‘Lay of St. Gengulphus.’ And to every guest his card had express’d ‘Half past’ as the hour for a greasy chin.

Great Cry and Little Wool.—See Cry.

Great Go (or Greats), subs. (Cambridge University).—The final examination for the B.A. degree; cf., Little-go. At Oxford, greater.

1841. Prince of the New-made Baccalere, Oxford. Great-go is passed.

1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, ch. x. Both small and great are sufficiently distant to be altogether ignored, if we are that way inclined.

1856–7. Thackeray, King of Brentford’s Test., st. 7. At college, though not fast, Yet his little-go and great-go, He creditably pass’d.

1871. Morning Advertiser, 28 Apr. Yes, Mr. Lowe has been plucked for his great go.

1883. Echo, 3 May, p. 2, c. 4. But few, indeed, are the men who have been in for greats during the last twenty years, and who have not blessed Mr. Kitchin for his edition of the Novum Organum.

Great Gun, subs. phr. (common).—1. A person of distinction; a thing of importance.

English Synonyms.—Big bug; big dog of the tanyard; big dog with the brass collar; big gun; big head; big one; big (or great) pot; big wig; biggest toad in the puddle; cock of the walk; don; large potato; nob; rumbusticator; stunner; swell; swell-head; topper; top-sawyer.

French Synonyms.—Un gros bonnet (familiar = big wig); un fiérot (a stuck-up); un herr (from the German); Monsieur Raidillon or Monsieur Pointu (= Mr. Stuck-up).

1836. M. Scott, Tom Cringle’s Log, ch. ii. A Spanish Ecclesiastic, the Canon of ——. Plenty of great guns, at any rate—a regular park of artillery.

1843. Haliburton, Sam Slick in England, ch. xv. The great guns and big bugs have to take in each other’s ladies.

Ibid., p. 24. Pick out the big bugs and see what sort of stuff they’re made of.

1853. Wh. Melville, Digby Grand, ch. x. The great guns of the party, the rector of the parish, the member for the county.

2. (pedlers’).—A peculiar practice; a trick of particular usefulness and importance; a favourite wheeze (q.v.).

1851. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, i., 256. The street-seller’s great gun, as he called it, was to make up packets, as closely resembling as he could accomplish it those which were displayed in the windows of any of the shops.

To Blow Great Guns, verb. phr. (nautical).—To blow a gale; also to blow great guns and small arms.

1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], 23. ‘Curse me, if I don’t think all the world means to cross the Thames this fine night!’ observed Ben. ‘One’d think it rained fares as well as blowed great guns.’

1854. H. Miller, Sch. and Schm. (1858), 14. It soon began to blow great guns.

1865. H. Kingsley, Hillyars and Burton, ch. lxxvii. It was blowing pretty high guns, sou’ eastern by east, off shore and when we came to the harbour’s mouth there was Tom Wyatt with his pilot just aboard.

1869. Arthur Sketchley, Mrs. Brown on Things in General. I never did see such weather, a-blowin great guns as the sayin’ is.

1892. R. L. Stevenson and L. Osbourne, The Wrecker, p. 340. It blew great guns from the seaward.

Great-house. See Big-house.

Great-Joseph, subs. (old).—An overcoat.

Great Scott! intj. (American).—An exclamation of surprise; an apology for an oath. [Possibly a memory of the name of Gen. Winfield Scott, a presidential candidate whose dignity and style were such as to win him the nickname “Fuss-and-Feathers.”] Also Great Cæsar.

1888. New York Mercury. Great Scott! you don’t say so.

1891. Gunter, Miss Nobody of Nowhere, p. 98. Bob, what’s the matter with you? Great Scott! the mine hain’t give out.

1891. Licensed Vict. Gaz., 19 June, p. 396, c 2. Great Scotch!—no, we mean Scott—well, language worthy of the great Harry prevailed for awhile.

1891. N. Gould, Double Event, p. 305. ‘Great Scott! what the deuce is Wells up to?’ said the Squire.

1892. R. L. Stevenson and L. Osbourne, The Wrecker, p. 106. Great Cæsar!

1892. Tit Bits, 19 Mar., p. 416, c. 1. He. Great Cæsar! There you go again! She. James will you please remember that it is your wife to whom you are speaking, sir? He. No other woman could drive me raving, distracted, crazy, asking silly questions about—She. James!

Great Shakes. See Shakes.

Great Smoke, subs. (thieves’)—London.

Great Sun, intj. (common).—An exclamation.

1876. Besant and Rice, Golden Butterfly. Great Sun! I think I see it now.

Great-unwashed, subs. (colloquial).—The lower classes; the rabble. Also the unwashed. [First used by Burke; popularised by Scott.]

1892. Sydney Watson, Wops the Waif, ch. iii., p. 4. We begin to understand what is meant by the lowest classes, the great unwashed.

Great Whipper-in, subs. phr. (common).—Death; old floorer (q.v.).

Grecian, subs. (old).—1. A roysterer; a greek (q.v.).

2. (Christ’s Hospital).—A senior boy.

3. (popular).—An Irishman.

Grecian Accent, subs. (popular).—A brogue.

Grecian-bend, subs. (common).—A stoop in walking. [Affected by some women c. 1869–80.] Cf., Alexandra Limp, Roman Fall, Italian Wriggle, Kangaroo Droop.

1821. Etonian, ii., 57. In person he was of the common size, with something of the Grecian bend, contracted doubtless from sedentary habits.

1869. Daily Telegraph, 1 Sept. I do not, however, think the ‘stoop’ our girls now have arises from tight-lacing. Some affect what is called the Grecian bend.

1870. Orchestra, 25 Mar. ‘Grand Comic Concert.’ The ladies have their Grecian bend, our typical gentleman explains a correspondent masculine affectation which he dubs ‘The Roman Fall—The Roman Fall.’

1871. Morning Advertiser, 4 Dec. A lady of five feet becomes, say, five feet two inches per heels, five feet six inches per hair, five feet again, per Grecian bend.

1876. Chambers’ Journal, No. 629. Your own advocacy for the Grecian bend and the Alexandra limp—both positive and practical imitations of physical affliction.

1886. Cornhill Magazine, Dec., p. 618. You ain’t nearly fine enough for a waitress or for ’im, neether. He likes a smart young woman with a Grecian bend.

Greed, subs. (thieves).—Money. For synonyms, see Actual and Gilt.

1857. Ducange Anglicus, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, s.v.

Greedy-gut (or -guts), subs. (old).—A voracious eater; a glutton. [As in the old (schoolboys’) rhyme: ‘Guy-hi, Greedy-gut, Eat all the pudding up.’] For synonyms, see Stodger. Fr., un glafâtre.

1598. Florio, A Worlde of Wordes, Edace, an eater, a devourer. a greedigut. Ibid. Putti occhi, greedie eies.

1772. Coles, Eng. Dict., s.v.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.

Greek, subs. (old).—1. Slang, or flash (q.v.); usually St. Giles’ Greek (q.v.). Cf., Cant, Gibberish, etc.

2. (colloquial).—A card-sharper; a cheat.

1528. Roy and Barlow, Rede me and be not wrothe, p. 117 [ed. Arber, 1871]. In carde playinge he is a goode Greke And can skyll of post and glycke, Also a prayre of dyce to trolle.

1568. Satirical Poems, ‘Scottish Text Soc.’ [1889–91] i., 77. A cowle, a cowle, for such a greek were fitter far to wea’re.

1598. Florio, A Worlde of Wordes. Grecheggiare … to play the Greek.

1602. Shakspeare, Troilus and Cressida, v. 6. Come, both you cogging Greeks; have at you both.

1819. Moore, Tom Crib, xxviii. Most of the cant phrases in Head’s English Rogue, which was published, I believe, in 1666, would be intelligible to a Greek of the present day.

1823. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, ii., 5. Come lads, bustle about; play will begin—some of the pigeons are here already, the Greeks will not be long following.

1834. Ainsworth, Rookwood, bk. IV., ch. i. Jerry was a Greek by nature, and could land a flat as well as the best of them.

1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. xxxvi. He was an adventurer, a pauper, a blackleg, a regular Greek.

1861. Once a Week, 25 May, p. 97. As the Greek places the packet [of cards] on the top of the other, he allows it to project the least bit in the world.

1884. Saturday Review, 16 Feb., p. 202. Without a confederate the now fashionable game of baccarat does not seem to offer many chances for the Greek.

3. (old).—An Irishman.

1823. Bee, Dict. of the Turf. Greek, s.v. Irishmen call themselves Greeks.

1851–61. H. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, Vol. i., p. 240. We had the Greeks (the lately arrived Irish) down upon us more than once.

1872. Standard, 3 Sept. ‘Melbourne Correspondence.’ The most noticeable point of comparison between the two Administrations is the presence or the absence of the Greek element from the Cabinet. Greek, as some of your readers are aware, is colonial slang for ‘Irish.’

4. (thieves’).—A gambler. Also a highwayman.

Merry Greek, subs. phr. (old).—A roysterer; a drunkard. Cotgrave. [In Latin, Graecare = to play the Greek—high-living and hard drinking.]

1602. Shakspeare, Troilus and Cressida, iv., 4. A woful Cressid ’mongst the merry Greeks.

Greek Fire, subs. phr. (thieves’).—Bad whiskey; Rotgut (q.v.).

1889. Clarkson and Richardson, Police, p. 321, s.v.

Greek Kalends, subs. phr. (colloquial).—Never. To defer anything to the Greek Kalends is to put it off sine die. (The Greeks used no kalends in their reckoning of time.)

c. 1649. Drumm. of Hawth. Consid. Parlt., wks. (1711) 185. That gold, plate, and all silver, given to the mint-house in these late troubles, shall be paid at the Greek Kalends.

1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, bk. I., ch. xx. The judgment or decree shall be given out and pronounced at the next Greek Calends, that is, never.

1823. Byron, Don Juan, c. xiii., st. 45. They and their bills, ‘Arcadians both,’ are left To the Greek Kalends of another session.

1825. Scott, Betrothed. Intro. Will you speak of your paltry prose doings in my presence, whose great historical poem, in twenty books, with notes in proportion, has been postponed ad Græcas Kalendas?

1872. O. W. Holmes, Poet Breakf. T. i., 18. His friends looked for it only on the Greek Calends, say on the 31st of April, when that should come round, if you would modernize the phrase.

1882. Macmillan’s Mag., 253. So we go on … and the works are sent to the Greek Calends.

English Synonyms.—In the reign of Queen Dick; when the devil is blind; when two Sundays come in a week; at Doomsday; at Tib’s Eve; one of these odd-come-shortlys; when my goose pisses; when the ducks have eaten up the dirt; when pigs fly; in a month of Sundays; once in a blue moon.

French Synonyms.—Mardi s’il fait chaud (obsolete); Dimanche après la grande messe (popular); quand les poules pisseront; semaine des quatre jeudis (popular: when four Thursdays come in a week).

Green, subs. (common).—1. Rawness; simplicity. Generally, ‘Do you see any green in my eye’? = Do you take me for a fool? See adj. sense.

1851–61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, ii., 247. I’m not a tailor, but I understands about clothes, and I believe that no person ever saw anything green in my eye.

1892. Ally Sloper, 19 Mar., p. 95, c. 2. Ally Sloper the ’cute, Ally Sloper the sly, Ally Sloper, the cove with no green in his eye.

1892. Illustrated Bits, 22 Oct., p. 14, c. 2. Sindin’ both shlips is it? How wud Oi have a check on ye? Do ye see inny green in me oi?

Adj. (colloquial).—Simple; inexperienced; gullible; unsalted (q.v.).

1596. Shakspeare, Hamlet, Act i., Sc. 3. Pol. Affection! pooh! you speak like a green girl.

1605. Chapman, All Fools, Act iv., p. 67 (Plays, 1874). Shall I then say you want experience? Y’are green, y’are credulous; easy to be blinded.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5th ed.). Green (a) … so likewise a young or unexperienced person in arts, sciences, etc., is sometimes said to be green, raw, etc.

1823. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry. Tom. No; you’re green! Jerry. Green! Log. Ah! not fly! Tom. Yes, not awake!

1837. Dickens, Oliver Twist, ch. viii. ‘My eyes, how green!’ exclaimed the young gentleman. ‘Why a beak’s a madgst’rate.’

1841. Punch, July 17, p. 6. What a green chap you are, after all. A public man’s consistency! It’s only a popular delusion.

1850. Smedley, Frank Fairleigh, p. 19. Eh! why! what’s the matter with you? have I done anything particularly green, as you call it?

1856. T. Hughes, Tom Brown’s School Days, pt. I., ch. ii. You try to make us think … that you are, even as we, of the working classes. But bless your hearts, we ain’t so green.

1869. Literary World, 31 Dec., p. 129, c. 2. His fellow-passengers laughed at him for being so green.

1879. Punch’s Almanack, p. 7. Seasonable Slang. For Spring.—You be blowed! For Summer.—I’ll warm yer! For Autumn.—Not so blooming green! For Winter.—An ice little game all round.

1887. Lippincott, July, p. 104. Within the last day or so a young fellow has arrived who is in danger of being eaten by the cows, so green is he.

1890. Licensed Vict. Gaz., 7 Nov. Being quite green at the time, I rather lost my head over my good fortune.

Verb (colloquial).—To hoax; to swindle. At Eton to green up. For synonyms, see Gammon.

1836–41. T. C. Buckland, Eton. I was again catechized on many points personal to myself, and some mild attempts were made to green me, as boys call it.

1889. Answers, 2 Mar., p. 218, c. 1. Whereupon the old humbug burst into a loud guffaw, as though he were rejoicing at having greened the toff.

1892. Anstey, Voces Populi (Second Series). ‘Bank Holiday,’ 147. The Damsel (giggling). You go on—you don’t green me that w’y.

Greens, subs. (old).—1. Chlorosis: i.e., the green sickness.

1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., i., 313. The maiden takes five, too, that’s vexed with her greens.

2. in. pl. (printers’).—Bad or worn out rollers.

To have, get, or give one’s greens, verb. phr. (venery).—To enjoy, procure, or confer the sexual favour. Said indifferently of both sexes.

Hence, also, on for one’s greens = amorous and willing; after one’s greens = in quest of the favour; green-grove = the pubes; green-grocery = the female pudendum; the price of greens = the cost of an embrace; fresh greens = a new piece (q.v.). [Derived by some from the old Scots’ grene = to pine, to long for, to desire with insistence: whence greens = longings, desires; which words may in their turn be referred, perhaps, to Mid. Eng., zernen, A.S., gyrnan, Icelandic, girna = to desire, and Gothic, gairns = desirous. Mod. Ger., begehren = to desire. See Dalziel, Darker Superstitions of Scotland, 1835, p. 106:—‘He answered that he wald gif the sum Spanyie fleis callit cantarides, quhilk, gif thou suld move the said Elizabeth to drynk of, it wold mak hir out of all question to grene eftir the.’ Trial of Peter Hay, of Kirklands, and others, for Witchcraft, 25th May, 1601. But in truth, the expression is a late and vulgar coinage. It would seem, indeed, to be a reminiscence of garden (q.v.), and the set of metaphors—as kail, cauliflower, parsley bed, and so forth (all which see)—suggested thereby.]

English Synonyms.—To be all there but the most of you; in Abraham’s bosom; up one’s petticoats (or among one’s frills); there; on the spot; into; up; up to one’s balls; where uncle’s doodle goes; among the cabbages.

To dance the blanket hornpipe; the buttock jig; the cushion dance (see Monosyllable.); the goat’s jig; the mattress jig; the married man’s cotillion; the matrimonial polka; the reels o’ Bogie (Scots’); the reels of Stumpie (Scots’); to the tune of the shaking of the sheets; with your arse to the ceiling, or the kipples (Scots’).

To go ballocking; beard-splitting; bed-pressing (Marston); belly-bumping (Urquhart); bitching (Marston); bum-fighting; bum-working; bum-tickling; bum-faking; bush-ranging; buttock-stirring (Urquhart); bird’s-nesting; buttocking; cock-fighting; cunny-catching; doodling; drabbing; fleshing it; flesh-mongering; goosing; to Hairyfordshire; jock-hunting; jottling; jumming (Urquhart); leather-stretching; on the loose; motting; molrowing; pile-driving; prick-scouring; quim-sticking; rumping; rump-splitting; strumming; twatting; twat-faking; vaulting (Marston, etc.); wenching; womanizing; working the dumb (or double, or hairy) oracle; twat-raking; tummy-tickling; tromboning; quim-wedging; tail-twitching; button-hole working; under-petticoating.

To have, or do, a bit of beef (of women); business (Shakspeare); bum-dancing; cauliflower; cock; cock-fighting; cunt; curly greens; fish; on a fork; fun; off the chump end; flat; front-door work; giblet pie; the gut- (or cream- or sugar-) stick (of women); jam; ladies’ tailoring; meat; mutton; pork; quimsy; rough; sharp-and-blunt (rhyming slang); stuff; split-mutton; skirt; summer cabbage.

To have, or do, or perform, the act of androgynation (Urquhart); a ballocking; a bit; a lassie’s by-job (Burns); a bedward bit (Durfey); a beanfeast in bed; a belly-warmer; a blindfold bit; a bottom-wetter (of women); a bout; a brush with the cue; a dive in the dark; a drop-in; a double fight; an ejectment in Love-lane; a four-legged frolic; a fuck; a futter; a game in the cock-loft; a goose-and-duck (rhyming); the culbatizing exercise (Urquhart); a grind; a hoist-in; a jottle; a jumble-giblets; a jumble-up; an inside worry; a leap; a leap up the ladder; a little of one with t’other (Durfey); a mount; a mow (David Lyndsay, Burns, etc.); a nibble; a plaster of warm guts (Grose); a poke; a put; a put-in; a random push (Burns); a rasp; a ride; a roger; a rootle; a rush up the straight; a shot at the bull’s eye; a slide up the board; a squirt-and-a squeeze; a touch-off; a touch-up; a tumble-in; a wet-’un; a wipe at the place; a wollop-in.

Specific.—To have, or do, a back-scuttle, (q.v.); a buttered bun (q.v.); a dog’s marriage (q.v.); a knee-trembler, perpendicular, or upright (q.v.); a matrimonial (q.v.); spoon-fashion (q.v.); a st. george (q.v.).

To play at, All-fours; Adam-and-Eve; belly-to-belly (Urquhart); brangle-buttock (Urquhart); buttock-and-leave-her; cherry-pit (Herrick); couple-your-navels; cuddle-my-cuddie (Durfey); Hey Gammer Cook (C. Johnson); fathers-and-mothers; the first-game-ever-played; Handie-Dandie; Hooper’s Hide (q.v.); grapple-my-belly (Urquhart); horses-and-mares (schoolboys’); the close-buttock-game (Urquhart); cock-in-cover; houghmagandie (Burns); in-and-in; in-and-out; Irish-whist (where-the-jack (q.v.)-takes-the ace [see Monosyllable.]); the-loose-coat-game (Urquhart); Molly’s hole (schoolboys’); pickle-me-tickle-me (Urquhart); mumble-peg; prick-the-garter; pully-hauly (Grose); put-in-all; the-same-old-game; squeezem-close; stable-my-naggie; thread-the-needle; tops-and-bottoms; two-handed-put (Grose); up-tails-all.

General.—To Adam and Eve it; to blow the groundsels; to engage three to one; to chuck a tread; to do (Jonson); to do it; to do ‘the act of darkness’ (Shakspeare), the act of love, the deed of kind, the work of increase, ‘the divine work of fatherhood’ (Whitman); to feed the dumb-glutton; to get one’s hair cut; to slip in Daintie Davie (Scots’), or Willie Wallace (idem); to get Jack in the orchard; to get on top of; to give a lesson in simple arithmetic (i.e., addition, division, multiplication and subtraction); to give a green gown (q.v.); to go ‘groping for trout in a peculiar river’ (Shakspeare); to go face-making; to go to Durham (North Country); to go to see a sick friend; to have it; to join faces (Durfey); to join giblets; to make ends meet; to make the beast with two backs (Shakspeare and Urquhart); to make a settlement in tail; to play top-sawyer; to put it in and break it; to post a letter; to go on the stitch; to labor lea (Scots); to tether one’s nags on (idem); to nail twa wames thegither (idem); to lift a leg on (Burns); to ride a post (Cotton); to peel one’s end in; to put the devil into hell (Boccaccio); to rub bacons (Urquhart); to strop one’s beak; to strip one’s tarse in; to grind one’s tool; to grease the wheel; to take on a split-arsed mechanic; to take a turn in Bushey-park, Cock-alley, Cock-lane, Cupid’s-alley, Cupid’s-corner, Hair-court, ‘the lists of love’ (Shakspeare), Love-lane, on Mount Pleasant, among the parsley, on Shooter’s-hill, through the stubble; to whack it up; to wollop it in; to labour leather; to wind up the clock (Sterne).

Of women only.—To get an arselins coup (Burns); to catch an oyster; to do the naughty; to do a spread, a tumble, a back-fall, what mother did before me; a turn on one’s back, what Eve did with Adam; to hold, or turn up one’s tail (Burns and Durfey); to get one’s leg lifted, one’s kettle mended, one’s chimney swept out, one’s leather stretched; to lift one’s leg; to open up to; to get shot in the tail; to get a shove in one’s blind eye; to get a wet bottom; what Harry gave Doll (Durfey); to suck the sugar-stick; to take in beef; to take Nebuchadnezzar out to grass; to look at the ceiling over a man’s shoulder; to get outside it; to play one’s ace; to rub one’s arse on (Rochester); to spread to; to take in and do for; to give standing room for one; to get hulled between wind and water; to get a pair of balls against one’s butt; to take in cream; to show (or give) a bit; to skin the live rabbit; to feed (or trot out) one’s pussy (q.v.); to lose the match and pocket the stakes; to get a bellyful of marrow pudding; to supple both ends of it (Scots); to draw a cork; to get hilt and hair (Burns); to draw a man’s fireworks; to wag one’s tail (Pope); to take the starch out of; to go star-gazing (or studying astronomy) on one’s back; to get a green gown (Herrick and Durfey); to have a hot pudding (or live sausage) for supper; to grant the favour; to give mutton for beef, juice for jelly, soft for hard, a bit of snug for a bit of stiff, a hole to hide it in, a cure for the horn (q.v.), a hot poultice for the Irish toothache; to pull up one’s petticoats to; to get the best and plenty of it; to lie under; to stand the push; to get stabbed in the thigh; to take off one’s stays; to get touched up, a bit of the goose’s-neck, a go at the creamstick, a handle for the broom.

Conventionalisms.—To have connection; to have carnal, improper, or sexual intercourse; to know carnally; to have carnal knowledge of; to indulge in sexual commerce; to go to bed with; to lie with; to go in unto (Biblical); to be intimate, improperly intimate, familiar, on terms of familiarity with; to have one’s will of; to lavish one’s favours on; to enjoy the pleasures of love, or the conjugal embrace; to embrace; to have one’s way with; to perform connubial rites; to scale the heights of connubial bliss; to yield one’s favours (of women); to surrender, or give one the enjoyment of one’s person (of women); to use benevolence to; to possess. For other synonyms, see Ride.

To send to dr. green, verb. phr. (old).—To put out to grass.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v. My horse is not well, I shall send him to Doctor Green.

S’elp me greens! (or taturs!) intj. (common).—A veiled oath of an obscene origin; see Greens. For synonyms, see Oaths.

1851–61. H. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, vol. iii., p. 144. They’ll say, too, s’elp my greens! and ‘Upon my word and say so!’

1891. Licensed Vict. Gaz., 23 Jan. ‘Well, s’elp me greens,’ he cried, wiping his eyes and panting for breath, ‘if you arn’t the greatest treat I ever did meet; you’ll be the death o’ me, Juggins, you will. Why, you bloomin’ idiot, d’ye think if they had’nt been rogues we should have been able to bribe ’em?’

Just for greens, adv. phr. (American).—See quot.

1848. Jones, Sketches of Travel, p. 7. I’ve made up my mind to make a tower of travel to the big North this summer, jest for greens, as we say in Georgia, when we hain’t got no very pertickeler reason for anything, or hain’t got time to tell the real one.

Green-apron, subs. (old).—A lay preacher. Also adjectively. For synonyms, see Devil-Dodger and Sky-Pilot.

1654. Warren, Unbelievers, 145. It more befits a green-apron preacher, than such a Gamaliel.

1705. Hickeringill, Priestcraft, I. (1721) 21. Unbeneficed Noncons. (that live by Alms and no Paternoster, no Penny, say the green-aprons).

1765. Tucker, Lt. Nat., II., 451. The gifted priestess amongst the Quaker is known by her green apron.

Green-back, subs. (common).—1. A frog.

2. (University).—One of Todhunter’s series of mathematical text-books. (Because bound in green cloth. Cf., Blue-ruin.)

3. (American).—The paper issue of the Treasury of the United States; first sent out in 1862 during the civil war. [From the backs being printed in green.] Hence green-backer = an advocate for an unlimited issue or paper money.

1873. Echo, 8 May. This was accomplished by the issue of legal tender notes, popularly known as greenbacks.

1877. Clemens, Life on the Mississippi, ch. lvii., p. 499. Anything in the semblance of a town lot, no matter how situated, was saleable, and at a figure which would still have been high if the ground had been sodded with greenbacks.

1891. Gunter, Miss Nobody of Nowhere, p. 228. Gussie can hear the crinkle of the greenbacks as he folds them up.

Green Bag, subs. (old).—A lawyer. [From the green bag in which robes and briefs were carried. The colour is now blue, or, in cases of presentation from seniors to juniors, red.]

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v.

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

English Synonyms.—Black box; bramble (provincial); devil’s own; gentleman of the long robe; land-shark; limb of the law; mouth-piece; Philadelphia lawyer (q.v.); quitam; six-and-eightpence; snipe; sublime rascal.

French Synonyms. Un bavard (pop. = a talker or mouthpiece); un blanchisseur (= whitewasher); un brodancheur à la plaque, aux macarons, or à la cymbale (thieves’: a notary-public); un gerbier (thieves’); un grippemini (obsolete: grippeminaud = thief); un inutile (thieves’: a notary-public); une éponge d’or (= a sucker-up of gold: in allusion to the long bills); un macaron huissier (popular).

Italian Synonyms.—Dragon del gran soprano; dragonetto (= a dragon, or suck-all).

Spanish Synonyms.—Remedio (= a remedy); la letraderia (= a body or society of lawyers); cataribera (jocular).

Green-Bonnet, to have (or wear) a green bonnet, verb. phr. (common).—To fail in business; to go bankrupt. [From the green cloth cap once worn by bankrupts.]

Green Cheese. See Cream Cheese and Moon.

Green Cloth. See Board of Green Cloth.

Green Dragoons, subs. (military).—The fifth Dragoon Guards; also known as the Green Horse. [From their green facings.]

Greener, subs. (common).—A new, or raw hand; specifically employed of inexperienced workmen introduced to fill the place of strikers; Dung (q.v.). Cf., Flint. For synonyms, see Snooker.

1889. Pall Mall Gaz., 14 Oct., p. 6, c. 3. A howling mob of Hebrew men and women … in their own Yiddish jargon criticised the new arrivals, or greeners, in language that was anything but complimentary.

Green-Goods, subs. (American).—1. Counterfeit greenbacks.

1891. Gunter, Miss Nobody of Nowhere, p. 223. In his opinion Stillman Myth, and Co., were in the green goods business.

2. (venery).—A prostitute new to the town; a fresh bit (q.v.).

Green-goods Man (or Operator), subs. (American).—1. A counterfeiter of spurious greenbacks; a Snide-pitcher (q.v.).

1888. Troy Daily Times, 3 Feb. Driscoll was hung, but the green goods-man escaped, for the only proof against him was that he sold a quantity of paper cut in the shape of bills, and done up in packages of that size.

2. (venery).—A Fresh Bit (q.v.) fancier. Also an amateur of defloration; a minotaur (q.v.).

Green-goose, subs. (old).—1. A cuckold.

2. (old).—A prostitute. For synonyms, see Barrack-hack and Tart.

1594. Shakspeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost, iv., 3. This is the liver vein, which makes flesh a deity; A green goose, a goddess, pure, pure idolatry.

1607. Beaumont and Fletcher, Woman Hater, i., 2. His palace is full of green geese.

Green-gown. To give a green-gown, verb. phr. (old).—To tumble a woman on the grass; to copulate. For synonyms, see Greens and Ride.

1647–8. Herrick, Hesperides. ‘To Corinna To go a Maying.’ Many a green gown has been given.

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. Green gown, s.v. A throwing of young lasses on the grass and kissing them.

1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., i., 277. Kit gave a green gown to Betty, and lent her his hand to rise.

1719. Smith, Lives of Highwaymen, i., 214. Our gallant being disposed to give his lady a green gown.

1742. C. Johnson, Highwaymen and Pyrates. Passim.

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

Green-head, subs. (old).—A greenhorn. For synonyms, see Buffle and Cabbage-head.

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. Greenhead, s.v., A very raw novice or inexperienced fellow.

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

Greenhorn (or Green-Head, or Greenlander), subs. (common).—A simpleton; a fool; a gull (q.v.); also a new hand. For synonyms, see Buffle and Cabbage-head. To come from Greenland = to be fresh to things; raw (q.v.). Greenlander sometimes = an Irishman.

1753. Adventurer, No. 100. A slouch in my gait, a long lank head of hair and an unfashionable suit of drab-coloured cloth, would have denominated me a greenhorn, or in other words, a country put very green.

1815. Scott, Guy Mannering, ch. xliv. ‘Why, wha but a crack-brained greenhorn wad hae let them keep up the siller that ye left at the Gordon-Arms?’

1837. Dickens, Oliver Twist. A new pall.… Where did he come from? Greenland.

1849. Thackeray, Pendennis, ch. ix. All these he resigned to lock himself into a lone little country house, with a simple widow and a greenhorn of a son.

Greenhouse, subs. (London ’bus-drivers’).—An omnibus.

Green Howards, subs. phr. (military).—The Nineteenth Foot. [From its facings and its Colonel’s name (1738–48), and to distinguish it from the Third Foot, also commanded by a Col. Howard.] Also Howard’s Garbage.

Green Kingsman, subs. (pugilistic).—A silk pocket-handkerchief: any pattern on a green ground.

Green Linnets, subs. phr. (military).—The 39th Foot. [From the facings.]

Greenly, adv. (old).—Like a greenhorn; foolishly.

1596. Shakspeare, Hamlet, Act iv., Sc. 5. King. … We have done but greenly, In hugger-mugger to inter him.

Greenmans, subs. (old).—1. The fields; the country.

1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark all, p. 38 (H. Club’s Rept.) 1874. Greenemans, the fields.

2. in sing. (builders’).—A contractor who speculates with other people’s money.

Green-meadow, subs. (venery).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.

Greenness, subs. (colloquial).—Immaturity of judgment; inexperience; gullibility.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5th ed.). Greenness (s) … also the rawness, unskilfulness, or imperfection of any person in a trade, art, science, etc.

1838. Jas. Grant, Sketches in London, ch. vi., p. 205. Instances of such perfect simplicity or greenness, as no one could have previously deemed of possible existence.

Green-rag.—See Greeny, sense 1.

Green-river. To send a man up green-river, verb. phr. (American).—To kill. [From a once famous factory on Green River, where a favourite hunting-knife was made.] For synonyms, see Cook One’s Goose.

1848. Ruxton, Life in the Far West, p. 175. A thrust from the keen scalp-knife by the nervous arm of a mountaineer was no baby blow, and seldom failed to strike home up to the green river [i.e., the mark] on the blade.

Green-sickness, subs. (old).—Chlorosis.

Green-turtle. To live up to green-turtle, verb. phr. (American).—To do, and give, one’s best. [From the high esteem in which the green fat of turtle is held.]

1888. Paton, Down the Islands. People who, as hosts, live up to their green turtle.

Greenwich Barber, subs. (old).—A retailer of sand from the Greenwich pits. [A pun upon ‘shaving’ the banks.]

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

Greenwich-Goose, subs. (old).—A pensioner of Greenwich Hospital.

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

Greeny, subs. (old theatrical).—1. The curtain. [From the colour.] Also Green-rag.

1821. Egan, Tom and Jerry, p. 110 [ed. 1890]. It is far more difficult to please the company behind Greeny; I beg pardon, sir, I should have said than the audience before the curtain.

2. (University).—A freshman. For synonyms, see Snooker.

1834. Southey, The Doctor, ch. i. He was entered among the greenies of this famous University.

3. (common).—A simpleton; a Greenhorn (q.v.). For synonyms, see Buffle and Cabbage-head.

1852. Judson, Myst., etc., of New York, part III., ch. 9, p. 58. Anybody could know that these was took by a greeny.

1887. Congregationalist, 7 April. Jim said I was a greeny … [and] that he had a lot of houses.

Greetin’ Fu’, adv. phr. (Scots’), Drunk: literally ‘crying drunk.’ For synonyms, see Drinks and Screwed.

Greeze, subs. (Westminster School).—A crowd; a push (q.v.).

Gregorian, subs. (old).—A kind of wig worn in the 17th century. [After the inventor, one Gregory, a barber in the Strand.]

1658. Honest Ghost, p. 46. Pulling a little down his Gregorian.

Gregorian-tree, subs. (old).—The gallows. [After a sequence of three hangmen of the name.] For synonyms, see Nubbing-cheat.

1641. Mercurius Pragmaticus. This trembles under the black rod, and he Doth fear his fate from the Gregorian tree.

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

Gregorine, subs. (common).—A louse; specifically, head vermin. [From the Italian.] For synonyms, see Chates.

Greshamite, subs. (old).—A Fellow of the Royal Society.—B. E. [1690.]

Grey.—See Gray, passim.

Griddle, subs. (streets’).—To sing in the streets. Whence, Griddling = street-singing; griddler = a street-singer.

1851–61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor. Got a month for griddling in the main drag.

1877. Besant and Rice, Son of Vulcan, pt. I., ch. xii. Cardiff Jack’s never got so low as to be griddling on the main drag—singing, I mean, on the high-road.

1888. W. Besant, Fifty Years Ago, ch. iv., p. 53. They [street singers] have not yet invented Moody and Sankey, and therefore they cannot sing ‘Hold the Fort’ or ‘Dare to be a Daniel,’ but there are hymns in every collection which suit the gridler.

1890. Daily Telegraph, 20 May. Singing or shouting hymns in the streets on Sundays. To this system the name of gridling has been applied. The gridlers, it was stated, were known to boast, as they returned to their haunts in Deptford and Southwark, how much they could make in a few hours.

Gridiron, subs. (American).—1. The United States’ flag; the Stars and Stripes. Also Stars and Bars; Blood and Entrails; Gridiron and Doughboys; and, in speaking of the Eagle in conjunction with the flag, the Goose and Gridiron.

2. (common).—A County Court Summons. [Originally applied to Writs of the Westminster Court, the arms of which resemble a gridiron.]

1859. Sala, Gaslight and Daylight, ch. xxi. He collects debts for anybody in the neighbourhood, takes out the abhorred gridirons, or County Court summonses.

3. (thieves’).—The bars on a cell window. Fr., les gaules de Schtard.

The Gridiron, subs. phr. (common).—The Grafton Club. [Where the grill is a speciality.]

On the Gridiron, adv. phr. (common).—Troubled; harassed; in a bad way; on toast (q.v.).

The Whole Gridiron, subs. phr. (common).—See Whole Animal.

Grief, To Come to Grief, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To come to ruin; to meet with an accident; to fail. In quot., 1891 = trouble.

1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. x. We drove on to the Downs, and we were nearly coming to grief. My horses are young, and when they get on the grass they are as if they were mad.

1888. Cassell’s Saturday Jour., 8 Dec., p. 249. In the United States he had started a ‘Matrimonial Agency,’ in which he had come to grief, and he had been obliged to return to this country for a similar reason.

1891. Sportsman, 28 Feb. The flag had scarcely fallen than the grief commenced, as Midshipmite and Carlo rolled over at the first fence, Clanranald refused at the second, and Dog Fox fell at the third.

Griffin (or Griff), subs. (common).—1. A new-comer; a raw hand; a Greenhorn (q.v.) See Snooker and Sammy Soft. [Specific uses are (Anglo-Indian) = a new arrival from Europe; (military) = a young subaltern; (Anglo-Chinese) = an unbroken horse.] Griffinage (or Griffinism) = the state of greenhornism.

1859. H. Kingsley, Geoffry Hamlyn, ch. xxviii. All the griffins ought to hunt together.

1878. Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, ch. xxx. We were in the Trenches; there had been joking with a lot of griffs, young recruits just out from England.

1882. Miss Braddon, Mount Royal, ch. xxii. There was only one of the lads about the yard when he left, for it was breakfast-time, and the little griffin didn’t notice.

1883. Graphic, 17 March, p. 286, c. 3. Many a youngster has got on in his profession … by having the good fortune to make a friend of the old Indian who took him in as a griffin or a stranger.

2. (colloquial).—A woman of forbidding manners or appearance; a Gorgon. Also a caretaker, chaperon, or sheep-dog (q.v.) [A reflection of the several griffins of ornithology and of heraldry: the former a feeder on birds, small mammals, and even children; the latter (as in Milton) a perfection of vigilance.]

1824. R. B. Peake, Americans Abroad, i., 2. It is always locked up by that she-griffin with a bunch of keys.

3. (thieves’).—A signal: e.g., to tip the griffin = to warn; to give the office (q.v.), or tip (q.v.). The straight griffin = the straight tip.

1888. Cassell’s Sat. Jour., 22 Dec., p. 305. Plank yourself at the corner to give the griffin if you hear or see owt.

1891. N. Gould, Double Event, p. 22. He’s got the straight griff for something.

1891. J. Newman, Scamping Tricks, p. 95. When he wanted to give the chaps in the office the straight griffin, he used to say, ‘Nelson’s my guide.’

4. in. pl. (trade).—The scraps and leavings from a contract feast, which are removed by the purveyor.

Griff-metoll, subs. (old).—Sixpence. For synonyms, see Tanner.

1754. Discoveries of John Poulter, s.v.

Grig, subs. (old).—1. An active, lively, and jocose person: as in the phrase ‘Merry as a Grig.’ [An allusion to the liveliness of the grasshopper, sand-eel, or to grig (= Greek: cf., Troilus and Cressida i. 2; iv. 4).]

1611. Cotgrave, Dictionarie. Gale-bon-temps. A merry grig.

1673. Wycherley, Gent. Danc. Master, i., 1., wks. (1713) 251. Hah, ah, ah, cousin, dou art a merry grigg—ma foy.

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Grig s.v. A merry grig; a merry fellow.

1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., i., 43. The statesman that talks on the Woolsack so big, Could hustle to the open as merry as a grig.

1765. Goldsmith, Essays VI. I grew as merry as a grig, and laughed at every word that was spoken.

1852. Dickens, Bleak House, ch. xix, p. 159. The learned gentleman … is as merry as a grig at a French watering-place.

2. (thieves’).—A farthing; a gigg (q.v.). For synonyms, see Fadge.

1680. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. Not a grig did he tip me, not a farthing would he give me.

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], p. 15. ‘He shall go through the whole course,’ replied Blueskin, with a ferocious grin, ‘unless he comes down to the last grig.’

Verb. (American).—To vex; to worry.

1855. Haliburton [S. Slick], Human Nature, p. 83. That word ‘superiors’ grigged me. Thinks I, ‘My boy, I’ll just take that expression, roll it up in a ball, and shy it back at you.’

Grim, subs. (American thieves’).—A skeleton. Also Grin.

Old Mr. Grim, subs. phr. (common).—Death. For synonyms, see Old Floorer.

Grin, verb. (American University, Virginia).—See quot.

1887. Lippincott, July, p. 99. If there are many ‘old men’ in the room they immediately begin to grin him; that is, they strike on their plates with their knives and forks, beat with their feet, and shout at the top of their voices, in the effort to make their victim grin. Woe to him if they succeed; for in that event the same thing will be repeated three times a day, until he ceases to notice it.

To grin in a Glass Case. verb. phr. (old).—To be shown as an anatomical preparation. [The bodies and skeletons of criminals were once preserved in glass cases at Surgeon’s Hall.—Grose.]

To flash the Upright Grin, verb. phr. (venery).—To expose the person (of women).

Grinagog, the Cat’s Uncle, subs. phr. (old).—A grinning simpleton.—Grose.

Grincums, subs. (old).—Syphilis. For synonyms, see Ladies’ Fever.

1608. Middleton, Family of Love, B. 1. I had a receipt for the grincomes in his own hand.

1635. Jones, Adrasta or the Woman’s Spleen, c. 2. You must know, sir, in a nobleman ’tis abusive; no, in him the serpigo, in a knight the grincomes, in a gentleman the Neapolitan scabb, and in a serving man or artificer the plaine pox.

1637. Massinger, Guardian, iv. The comfort is, I am now secure from the grincomes, I can lose nothing that way.

Grind, subs. (common).—1. A walk; a constitutional: e.g., ‘to take a grind’ or (University) ‘to go on the Grandchester (or Gog Magog Hills) grind.’

2. (common).—Daily routine; hard or distasteful work.

1853. Bradley, Verdant Green, pt. III., ch. xi. To a University man, a grind did not possess any reading signification, but a riding one. In fact, it was a steeple-chase, slightly varying in its details according to the college that patronised the pastime.

1870. London Figaro, 28 July. The world is a wearisome grind, love, Nor shirk we our turn at the wheel.

1880. A. Trollope, The Duke’s Children, ch. xxv. ‘Isn’t it a great grind, sir?’ asked Silverbridge. ‘A very great grind, as you call it. And there may be the grind and not the success. But——’

1880. One and All, 27 Mar., p. 207. Soul-weary of life’s horrid grind, I long to come to thee.

3. (schools’).—Study; reading up for an examination; also a plodding student, i.e., a grinder.

1856. Hughes, Tom Brown’s School Days, pt. II., ch. v. ‘Come along, boys,’ cries East, always ready to leave the grind, as he called it.

1887. Chambers’ Jour., 14 May, p. 310. Smalls made just such a goal as was required, and the grind it entailed was frequently of no slight profit to him.

4. (medical students’).—A demonstration: as (1) a ‘public grind’ given to a class and free to all; and (2) a ‘private grind’ for which a student pays an individual teacher. In America, a quiz (q.v.).

5. (Oxford University).—Athletic sports. Also, a training run.

1872. Chambers’ Jour., April. Joe Rullock, the mighty gymnasiarch, the hero of a hundred grinds, the unwearied haunter of the palæstra, could never give the lie to his whole past life, and deny his own gymnastics.

6. (venery).—An act of sexual intercourse: e.g., To do a grind. [Mill and grindstone (venery) = the female pudendum.] For synonyms, see Greens and Ride.

1598. Florio, A Worlde of Wordes. Macinio, the grinding of grist. Also taken for carnal copulation.

1647. Ladies Parliament. Digbie’s lady takes it ill, that her Lord grinds not at her mill.

The grind, subs. phr. (Cambridge University).—The ferry-boat at Chesterton.

Verb. (University).—1. To prepare for examination to study: to read.

1856. T. Hughes, Tom Brown’s School Days, pt. II., ch. vii. ‘The thing to find out,’ said Tom meditatively, ‘is how long one ought to grind at a sentence without looking at the crib.’

2. (University).—To teach; to instruct; to coach (q.v.).

3. (common).—To do a round of hard and distasteful work; to apply oneself to daily routine.

1880. Punch, 5 June, p. 253. ‘Fred on Pretty Girls and Pictures.’ And the pars in the Scanmag—he does them—are proper, and chock full of ‘go.’ Only paper I care to grind though.

4. (venery).—To copulate.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Grind, s.v.

5. trans. (American).—To vex; to ‘put out.’

1879. W. D. Howells, Lady of the Aroostook, ch. vii. After all, it does grind me to have lost that money!

Also grinding = (1) the act of reading or studying hard; (2) the act or occupation of preparing students, for an examination; and (3) the act of copulation.

On the grind, subs. phr. (venery).—Said of incontinent persons of both sexes. Also of prostitutes.

To grind an axe.—See Axe.

To get a grind on one, verb. phr. (American).—To play practical jokes; to tell a story against one; to annoy or vex.

To grind wind, verb. phr. (old prison).—To work the treadmill. See Everlasting Staircase.

1889. Clarkson and Richardson. Police, p. 322. On the treadmill … grinding wind.

Grinder, subs. (college).—1. A private tutor; a coach (q.v.). Cf., Crammer.

1812. Miss Edgeworth, Patronage, ch. iii. Put him into the hands of a clever grinder or crammer, and they would soon cram the necessary portion of Latin and Greek into him.

1841. Punch, vol. I., p. 201. Then contriving to accumulate five guineas to pay a grinder, he routs out his old note books from the bottom of his box and commences to read.

1841. A. Smith, ‘The London Medical Student’ in Punch, i., p. 229. G was a grinder, who sharpen’d the the fools.

1849. Thackeray, Pendennis, ch. v. She sent me down here with a grinder. She wants me to cultivate my neglected genius.

2. Usually in. pl. (common).—The teeth.

English Synonyms.—Bones; chatterers; cogs; crashing cheats; dining-room furniture (or chairs); dinner-set; dominoes; front-rails; Hampstead Heath (rhyming); head rails; ivories; park-palings (or railings); snagglers; tushes (or tusks); tomb-stones.

French Synonyms.—Les soeurs blanches (thieves’ = the ‘white sisters’ or ivories); les chocottes (thieves’); les cassantes (thieves’ = grinders); les broches (popular = head-rails); les crocs (popular = tusks); le clou de giroflé (common = a decayed, black tooth); les branlantes (popular = the quakers: specifically, old men’s teeth); le mobilier (thieves’ = furniture); les meules de moulin (popular = millstones); le jeu de dominos (thieves’ = dominoes); les osanores (thieves’); les osselets (thieves’ = bonelets); les palettes (popular and thieves’); la batterie (= the teeth, throat, and tongue).

German Synonyms.—Krächling (= grinderkin; from krachen = to crush).

Italian Synonyms.—Merlo (= battlement); sganascio; rastrelliera (= the rack).

1597. Hall, Satires, iv., 1. Her grinders like two chalk stones in a mill.

1640. Humphrey Mill, Night’s Search, Sect. 39, p. 194. Her grinders white, her mouth must show her age.

1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, bk. IV. Author’s Prologue. The devil of one musty crust of a brown George the poor boys had to scour their grinders with.

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. Grinder, s.v. The Cove has Rum Grinders, the Rogue has excellent Teeth.

1693. Dryden, Juvenal, x., 365. One, who at sight of supper open’d wide His jaws before, and whetted grinders tried.

1740. Walpole, Correspondence. A set of gnashing teeth, the grinders very entire.

1751. Smollett, Peregrine Pickle, ch. xlv. Like a dried walnut between the grinders of a Templar in the pit.

1817. Scott, Ivanhoe, c. 16. None who beheld thy grinders contending with these peas.

1819. Moore, Tom Crib, p. 23. With grinders dislodg’d, and with peepers both poach’d.

1834. Ainsworth, Rookwood, bk. iv., ch. i. A grinder having been dislodged, his pipe took possession of the aperture.

1836. M. Scott, Cruise of the Midge, p. 83. Every now and then he would clap his head sideways on the ground, so as to get the back grinders to bear on his prey.

1848. Thackeray, Book of Snobs, ch. xiii. Sir Robert Peel, though he wished it ever so much, has no power over Mr. Benjamin Disraeli’s grinders, or any means of violently handling that gentleman’s jaw.

1871. Chambers’ Jour., 9 Dec., p. 772. My grinders is good enough for all the wittels I gets.

1888. Sporting Life, 28 Nov. Countered heavily on the grinders.

To take a grinder, verb. phr. (common).—To apply the left thumb to the nose, and revolve the right hand round it, as if to work a hand-organ or coffee-mill; to take a sight (q.v.); to work the coffee-mill (q.v.). [A street boy’s retort on an attempt to impose on his good faith or credulity.]

1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xxxi. Here Mr. Jackson smiled once more upon the company; and, applying his left thumb to the tip of his nose, worked a visionary coffee-mill with his right hand, thereby performing a very graceful piece of pantomime (then much in vogue, but now, unhappily, almost obsolete) which was familiarly denominated taking a grinder.

1870. Athenæum, 8 July. ‘Rev. of Comic Hist. of United States.’ He finds himself confronted by a plumed and lightly-clad Indian, who salutes him with what street-boys term a grinder.

Grinding-house, subs. (old).—1. The House of Correction. For synonyms, see Cage.

1614. Terence in English. The fellow is worthy to be put into the grinding-house.

2. (venery).—A brothel. For synonyms, see Nanny-shop. [Grinding-tool = the penis.]

Grinding-mill, subs. (common).—The house of a tutor or Coach (q.v.) where students are prepared for an examination.

Grind-off (or Grindo), subs. (common).—A miller. [From a character in The Miller and his Men.]

Grindstone, subs. (common).—1. A tutor; a coach (q.v.).

2. (venery).—The female pudendum.

To bring (hold, put, or keep) one’s nose to the grindstone, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To oppress, harass, or punish; to treat harshly. To have one’s nose kept to the grindstone = to be held to a bargain, or at work.

1578. North, Plutarch, p. 241. They might be ashamed, for lack of courage, to suffer the Lacedæmonians to hold their noses to the grindstone.

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. Hold. Hold his nose to the grindstone, to keep him Under, or Tie him Neck and Heels in a Bargain.

To have the grindstone on his back, verb. phr. (common).—Said of a man going to fetch the monthly nurse.—Grose.

Grinning-stitches, subs. (milliners’).—Slovenly sewing; stitches wide apart; ladders (q.v.).

Grip (or Gripsack), subs. (American).—A hand-bag or satchell.

To lose one’s grip, verb. phr. (American).—To fail; to lose one’s control.

Gripe, subs. (old).—1. A miser; a usurer. Also Griper or Gripe-fist (q.v.). For synonyms, see Hunks and Sixty-per-cent. Griping = extortion.

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. Gripe, or griper, s.v. An old covetous wretch. Also a banker, money scrivener, or usurer.

2. in. pl. (colloquial).—The colic; the stomach ache; the Collywobbles. For synonyms, see Jerry-go-nimble.

1684. Bunyan, Pilgr. Prog., Pt. II. He concluded that he was sick of the gripes.

1705. Char. of a Sneake, in Harl. Misc. (ed. Park), ii., 356. He never looks upon her Majesty’s arms but semper eadem gives him the gripes.

1714. Spectator, No 559. Meeting the true father, who came towards him with a fit of the gripes, he begged him to take his son again, and give back his cholic.

1812. Coombe, Tour in Search of Picturesque, c. xxvi. That he who daily smokes two pipes, The tooth-ache never has—nor gripes.

Gripe-fist, subs. (common).—A miser; a grasping broker. For synonyms, see Hunks. Also Gripe-penny.

1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, s.v.

Grist, subs. (American).—A large number or quantity. [Swift uses grist = a supply; a provision.]

1848. Cooper, Oak Openings. There’s an unaccountable grist of bees, I can tell you.

a. 1852. Traits of American Humour, i., 305. I … got pretty considerable soaked by a grist of rain.

To bring grist to the mill, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To bring profitable business; to be a source of profit.

1719. Poor Robin’s Almanack, May. Lawyers pleading do refrain A while, and then fall to ’t again; Strife brings grist unto their mill.

1770. Foote, Lame Lover, i. Well, let them go on, it brings grist to our mill.

1804. Horsley, Speech, 23 July. A sly old pope created twenty new saints, to bring grist to the mill of the London clergy.

1817. Scott, Ivanhoe, c. 16. Some three or four dried pease—a miserable grist for such a mill.

1838. Dickens, Nich. Nickleby, ch. xxxiv., p. 268. Meantime the fools bring grist to my mill.

Gristle, subs. (venery).—The penis. For synonyms, see Creamstick and Prick.

Grit, subs. (originally American: now colloquial).—1. Character; pluck; spirit; sand (q.v.). Also clear grit. No grit = lacking in stamina; wanting in courage.

1825. Neal, Bro. Jonathan, bk. II., ch. xiv. A chap who was clear grit for a tussle, any time.

1848. Burton, Waggeries, etc., p. 13. The old folks … began to think that she warn’t the clear grit.

1849. C. Kingsley, Alton Locke, ch. vi. A real lady—l’air noble—the rael genuine grit, as Sam Slick says.

1852. H. B. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ch. vii. You’re a right brave old girl. I like grit, wherever I see it.

1860. Thackeray, Philip, ch. xxxi. If you were a chip of the old block you would be just what he called the grit.

1889. Referee, 6 Jan. They never did think there was any real grit about him.

1890. Scribner, Feb., 242. ‘Looks like he got grit, don’t it?’ Lige muttered.

1892. R. L. Stevenson and L. Osbourne, The Wrecker, p. 249. I am as full of grit and work as ever, and just tower above our troubles.

2. (Canadian political).—A member of the Liberal party.

Gritty, adj. (American).—Plucky; courageous; resolute; full of character.

1847. Robb, Squatter Life, p. 106. There never was a grittyer crowd congregated on that stream.

Grizzle, verb. (colloquial).—To fret. Also to grizzle one’s guts.

1872. Miss Braddon, To the Bitter End, ch. xvi. ‘If the locket’s lost, it’s lost,’ she said philosophically; ‘and there’s no use in grizzling about it.’

Grizzle-guts (or Grizzle- or Glum-pot). subs. (common).—A melancholy or ill-tempered person; a sulkington (q.v.).

Groaner, subs. (old).—A thief plying his trade at funerals or religious gatherings.

1848. Duncombe, Sinks of London, s.v.

1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, s.v.

Groaning, subs. (old).—The act of parturition. Also, adj., parturient; or appertaining to parturition: as in groaning-malt (Scots’) = drink for a lying-in; groaning-pains = the pangs of delivery; groaning-wife = a woman ready to lie-in.

1594. Nashe, Unfort. Trav. (Chiswick Press, 1892), p. 92. As smoothe as a groaning-wive’s bellie.

1596. Shakspeare, Hamlet, iii., 2. It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.

1786. Burns, The Rantin’ Dog the Daddie O’t. Wha will bring the groaning-malt?

Groats, subs. (nautical).—The chaplain’s monthly allowance.

To save one’s groats, verb. phr. (old University).—To come off handsomely. [At the Universities nine groats are deposited in the hands of an academic officer by every person standing for a degree, which, if the depositor obtains, with honour, are returned to him.—Grose.]

Grocery, subs. (common).—1. Small change.

1728. Bailey, Eng. Dict., s.v.

2. (American).—A drinking bar. Also Confectionery and Groggery.

1847. Porter, Quarter Race, etc. 104. He went into his favourite grocery.

3. (common).—Sugar. [A restricted use of a colloquialism.]

1841. Lytton, Night and Morning, Bk. V., ch. ii. A private room and a pint of brandy, my dear. Hot water and lots of the grocery.

Grog, subs. (old: now recognised).—Spirits and water; strong drink generally. [Till Admiral Vernon’s time (1745) rum was served neat, but he ordered it to be diluted, and was therefore nicknamed ‘Old Grog,’ in allusion to his grogram coat: a phrase that was presently adapted to the mixture he had introduced.] Groggy = drunk.

Verb. (old).—To dilute or adulterate with water.

1878. Lincoln, Rutland, and Stamford Mercury, 8 Mar. The defendants had grogged the casks by putting in hot water.

To have grog on board (or to be grogged), verb. phr. (common).—To be drunk. For synonyms, see Screwed.

1842. Comic Almanack, October. He stands and listens, sad and dogged, To ‘fined five bob’ for being grogged.

Grog-blossom, subs. (common).—A pimple caused by drinking to excess. Also Copper-nose and Jolly-nose. Fr., un nez culotté and un nez de pompettes.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, Grog-blossom, s.v.

1883. Thos. Hardy, The Three Strangers, in Longman’s Mag., March, p. 576. A few grog-blossoms marked the neighbourhood of his nose.

1888. W. Besant, Fifty Years Ago, ch. xi., p. 169. The outward and visible signs of rum were indeed various. First, there was the red and swollen nose, next, the nose beautifully painted with grog-blossoms.

Grog-fight, subs. (military).—A drinking party. Cf., Tea-fight.

1876. R. M. Jephson, Girl he Left Behind Him, ch. 1. He had been having a grog-fight in his room to celebrate the event.

Groggery, subs. (American).—A public bar; a grog-shop.

Groggy, adj. (colloquial).—1. Under the influence of drink. For synonyms, see Drinks and Screwed.

1829. Buckstone, Billy Taylor. i., as a gay young woman, will delude Taylor away from Mary, make him groggy, then press him off to sea.

1863. Fun, 23 May, p. 98, c. 2. They fined drunkards and swearers, and there is a record in the parish-books, among others of a similar nature, of a certain Mrs. Thunder who was fined twelve shillings for being, like Mr. Cruikshank’s horse at the Brighton Review, decidedly groggy.

1872. Echo, 30 July. A model of perfection had she not shown more than necessary partiality to her elder friend’s brandy bottle during the journey, despite the latter’s oft-repeated caution not to become groggy.

2. (colloquial).—Staggering or stupified with drink. Also (stable) moving as with tender feet. Also (pugilists’) unsteady from punishment and exhaustion. Fr., locher = to be groggy.

1831. Youatt, The Horse, ch. xvi., p. 380. Long journeys at a fast pace will make almost any horse groggy.

1846–8. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, vol. ii., ch. v. Cuff coming up full of pluck, but quite reeling and groggy, the Fig-merchant put in his left as usual on his adversary’s nose, and sent him down for the last time.

1853. Diogenes, vol. ii., p. 177. The anxiety is not confined to the metropolis; as a respectable grazier, who rides a groggy horse, on hearing of it at a public-house the other day, affirmed it to be the mysterious cause of the rise in the value of horseflesh.

1888. Sportsman, 28 Nov. In the tenth Thompson, who had been growing groggy, to the surprise of Evans began to force the fighting.

Grogham, subs. (old).—A horse; a daisy-kicker (q.v.). Now mostly in contempt. For synonyms, see Prad.

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

Grog-shop, subs. (common).—The mouth. For synonyms, see Potatoe-trap.

1843. Thackeray, Men’s Wives, Frank Berry, ch. i. Claret drawn in profusion from the gown-boy’s grog-shop.

Grog-tub, subs. (nautical).—A brandy bottle.

Groom, subs. (gamesters’).—A croupier.

Groomed. See Well-groomed.

Groovy, subs. (American).—A sardine.

Adj. (popular).—Settled in habit; limited in mind.

Grope, verb. (venery).—To feel a woman; to fumble; to fam (q.v.).

1611. Cotgrave, Dictionarie. Mariolement. Groping of a wench.

1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., i., 194. Smoking, toping, Landlady groping.

Groper, subs. (old).—1. A blind man; hoodman (q.v.).

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v.

1728. Bailey, Eng. Dict., s.v.

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

2. (old).—A pocket. For synonyms, see Brigh and Sky-rocket.

1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 143. Gropers. Pockets.

3. (old).—A midwife; a fingersmith (q.v.).

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

Grotto, subs. (venery).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.

Ground. To suit down to the ground, verb. phr. (common).—To be thoroughly becoming or acceptable.

1878. M. E. Braddon, Cloven Foot, ch. xlv. Some sea coast city in South America would suit me down to the ground.

1891. Licensed Vict. Gaz., 9 Feb. I knows the very bloke that’ll suit you down to the ground.

1891. Sporting Life, 28 Mar. At Knowle he is suited down to the ground.

1892. Milliken, ’Arry Ballads, p. ii. They suit me right down to the ground.

To wipe (or mop) up the ground (or floor) with one, verb. phr. (common).—To administer the very soundest thrashing; to prove oneself absolutely superior to one’s opposite.

1887. Henley and Stevenson, Deacon Brodie, i., 3. Muck! that’s my opinion of him; … I’ll mop the floor up with him any day, if so be as you or any on ’em ’ll make it worth my while.

1888. Detroit Free Press, Aug. The Scroggin boy was as tough as a dogwood knot. He’d wipe up the ground with him; he’d walk all over him.

To go (or get) well to the ground, verb. phr. (old colloquial).—To defæcate; to rear (q.v.). For synonyms, see Mrs. Jones.

1608. Middleton, Family of Love, v. 3. Do you go well to the ground?

1856. Notes and Queries, 2 S., i., p. 324. To get to the ground, in medical phraseology, means to have the bowels opened.

Grounder, subs. (cricketers’).—A ball with a ground delivery; a sneak; a grub; and (in America) at base-ball, a ball struck low, or flying near the ground.

Ground-floor. To be let in on the Ground-floor, verb. phr. (American).—To share in a speculation on equal terms with the original promoters.

Ground-squirrel, subs. (old).—A hog; a grunter—Lex. Bal. For synonyms, see Sow’s Baby.

Ground-sweat. To have (or take) a ground-sweat, verb. phr. (old).—To be buried.

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. Ground sweat, s.v., a grave.

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

Grouse. To do a grouse (or to go grousing), verb. phr. (venery).—To quest, or to run down, a woman; to molrow (q.v.). Groused = Molled (q.v.).

Grouser, subs. (popular).—1. A grumbler. For synonyms, see Rusty-guts.

2. (venery).—One who goes questing after women; a molrower (q.v.).

3. (sporting).—A rowing man; a wet-bob (q.v.).

Grousing, subs. (venery).—Going in quest of women; sparrow-catching (q.v.); molrowing (q.v.).

Groute, verb. (Marlborough and Cheltenham Colleges).—To work or study hard; to swot (q.v.). For synonyms, see Wire In.

Grouty, adj. (common).—Crabbed; sulky.

Grove of Eglantine, subs. phr. (venery).—The female pudendum; also the female pubic hair. For synonyms, see Monosyllable and Fleece.

1772. Carew, Poems. ‘A Rapture.’ Retire into thy Grove of Eglantine.

Grove of the Evangelist, subs. phr. (common).—St. John’s Wood; also Apostle’s Grove, and the Baptist’s Wood.

Grow, verb. (prison).—To be accorded the privilege of letting one’s hair and beard grow. Also to grow one’s feathers.

Growler, subs. (common).—A four-wheeled cab. Cf., Sulky.

English Synonyms.—Bird-cage; blucher; bounder; fever-trap; flounder-and-dab (rhyming); four-wheeler; groping hutch; mab (an old hackney); rattler; rumbler.

French Synonyms.—Un bordel ambulant (common = a walking brothel); un char numèroté (popular); un flatar (thieves’); un foutoir ambulant (= a fuckery on wheels); un mylord (popular).

1870. Orchestra, 21 Mar. A recent enigmatical bill-poster on the walls, with the device ‘Hie, Cabby, Hie!’ turns out to be a Patent Cab Call—an ingenious sort of lamp-signal for remote hansoms and growlers.

1873. Land and Water, 25 Jan. The knacker’s yard is baulked for a time, while the quadruped shambles along in some poverty-stricken growler.

1883. Daily Telegraph, 8 Jan., p. 5, c. 3. But while a great improvement has been made in hansoms of late years, the four-wheeler or growler is still as a rule a disgrace to the metropolis.

1890. Daily Graphic, 7 Jan., p. 14, c. 1. What with hansom cabs and growlers and private broughams; what with bonded carmen’s towering waggons.

1891. Globe, 15 July, p. 1, c. 3. Adapting the words of Waller to the condition of many of our growlers—The cab’s dull framework, battered and decayed, Lets in the air through gaps that time has made.

To rush (or work) the growler, verb. phr. (American workmen’s).—See quot. [Growler = pitcher.]

1888. New York Herald, 29 July. One evil of which the inspectors took particular notice was that of the employment by hands in a number of factories of boys and girls, under ten and thirteen years, to fetch beer for them, or in other words to rush the growler.

Grown-man’s-dose, subs. (common).—A lot of liquor. Also a long drink (q.v.). For synonyms, see Go.

Grown-up, subs. (colloquial).—An adult: among undertakers, a grown.

1864. Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, Bk. ii., ch. 1. I always did like grown ups.

Grub, subs. (vulgar).—1. Food.

English Synonyms.—Belly-cheer (or chere); belly-furniture; belly-timber; Kaffir’s tightener (specifically, a full meal); chuck; corn; gorge-grease; manablins (= broken victuals); mouth harness; mungarly; peck; prog; scoff (S. African); scran; stodge; tack; tommy (specifically, bread); tuck; yam. Also, verbally, to bung the cask; to grease the gills; to have the run of one’s teeth; to yam. See also Wolf.

French Synonyms.—La becquetance (popular = peck); le biffre (popular); la frigousse (popular); la fripe (popular, from O. Fr., fripper = to eat); la gringue (common); les matériaux (freemason’s = materials); la briffe (popular); la boustifaille (popular); le harnois de gueule (Rabelais: = mouth-harness); le coton (popular, an allusion to a lamp-wick); les comestaux (popular = comestibles); le tortorage (thieves’); la broute (popular = grazing); la morfe (O. Fr. Also, in a verbal sense = to feed); tortiller du bec (popular = to wag a jaw); se calfater le bec (nautical: also = to drink); becqueter (popular = to ‘peck’); béquiller (popular); chiquer (popular = to ‘chaw’); bouffer (popular); boulotter (common); taper sur les vivres (popular = to assault the eatables); pitancher (common: also = to drink); passer à la tortore (thieves’); se l’envoyer; casser la croustille (thieves’ = to crack a crust); tortorer (thieves’); briffer; passer à briffe (popular); brouter (Villon = to browse); se caler, or se caler les amygdales (popular); mettre de l’huile dans la lampe (common = to trim the lamp); se coller quelque chose dans le fanal, dans le fusil, or dans le tube (popular = to trim one’s beacon-light; to load one’s gun, etc.); chamailler des dents (popular = to ‘go it’ with the ivories); jouer des badigoinces (common: badigoinces = chaps); jouer des dominos (popular: dominos = teeth); déchirer la cartouche (military); gobichonner (popular); engouler (popular = to bolt); engueuler (colloquial = to gobble); friturer (popular: also = to cook); gonfler (popular: to blow out); morfiaillier (Rabelaisian); morfigner, or morfiler (From O. Fr., morfier; cf., Ital., morfire or morfizzare); cacher (popular = to stow away); se mettre quelque chose dans le cadavre (popular = to stoke); se lester la cale (nautical: to lay in ballast); se graisser les balots (thieves’: to grease the gills); se caresser (to do oneself a good turn); effacer (popular = to put away); travailler pour M. Domange (popular: M. Domange was a famous goldfinder or gong farmer [q.v.]); clapoter (popular); debrider la margoulette (popular = to put one’s nose in the manger); croustiller (popular); charger pour la guadaloupe (popular); travailler pour Jules (common: Jules = Mrs. Jones); se faire le jabot (popular, jabot = stomach); jouer des osanores (popular: osanores = teeth); casser (thieves’); claquer (familiar = to rattle one’s ivories); klebjer (popular); faire trimer les mathurins (popular = to make the running with one’s teeth); se coller quelque chose dans le bocal (common: bocal = paunch); estropier (popular = to maim); passer à galtos (nautical); bourrer la paillasse (common = to stuff the mattress); faire trimer le battant (thieves’); jouer des mandibules (popular); s’emplir le gilet (popular = to fill one’s waistcoat); se garnir le bocal (popular: to furnish one’s paunch); se suiver la gargarousse (nautical: also = to drink); babouiner (popular); charger la canonnière (popular: canonnière = the breech); gousser (popular); gouffier (obsolete).

German Synonyms.—Achile, Achelinchen, or Acheliniken (from Heb. Ochal); Achelputz (from Heb. ochal + putzen from O.H.G. bizan or pizzan = to eat).

Italian Synonyms.—Artibrio; and, verbally, sbattere (= to beat, to struggle); intappare il fusto (= to bung the cask); smorfire.

Spanish Synonyms.—Papar (colloquial: from papa = pap); hacer el buche (low: buche = craw or crop); echar (colloquial); manducar; meter.

1659. Dialogue betwixt an Exciseman and Death, transcribed from a Copy in British Museum, printed in London by J. C[lark]. I’ll pass my word this night Shall yield us grub before the morning light.

1725. New Cant. Dict. Grub, s.v., victuals.

1781. G. Parker, View of Society, I., 171. How did you procure your grub and Bub?

1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 149. Bub and Grub. A mighty low expression, signifying victuals and drink.

1836. M. Scott, Tom Cringle’s Log, ch. iii. Poor Purser! de people call him Purser, sir, because him knowing chap; him cabbage all de grub, slush, and stuff in him own corner.

d. 1842. Maginn, Vidocq’s Song. Any bubby and grub, I say?

1857. Thackeray, Shabby Genteel Story, ch. i., p. 9. He used to … have his grub too on board.

1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. i., p. 45. I at once congratulated myself on not being a large eater, as there was no doubt but my grub would run very short if it depended on my oakum-picking.

1889. Star, 3 Dec., p. 2, c. 6. Of course it was grub. It was for food, the food for which they beg, and steal, and go willingly to prison, for a certain good square meal of meat.

1892. Hume Nisbet, Bushranger’s Sweetheart, p. 154. That sad, sad secret about Mary would keep him in grub for the next day or two at ‘The Rose in Bloom.’

2. (old).—A short thick-set man; a dwarf. In contempt. For synonyms, see Hop-o’-my-Thumb.

3. (colloquial).—A dirty sloven; generally used of elderly people.

4. (American).—A careful student; a hard reader.

1856. Hall, College Words and Phrases, quoted from Williams’ Coll. Quarterly, ii., 246. A hard reader or student: e.g., not grubs or reading men, only wordy men.

5. (American).—Roots and stumps; whatever is ‘grubbed up.’

6. (cricketers’).—A ball delivered along the ground; a grounder (q.v.); a daisy-cutter (q.v.). For synonyms, see Lob-sneak.

1823. Bee, Dict. of the Turf. Grub, s.v.

Verb. (old).—1. To take or supply with food. For synonyms, see subs. sense 1.

1725. New Cant. Dict. Grub, s.v., to eat.

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue. Grub, s.v., to dine.

1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xxii., p. 184. I never see such a chap to eat and drink; never. The red-nosed man warn’t by no means the sort of person you’d like to grub by contract, but he was nothin’ to the shepherd.

1883. Daily Telegraph, 18 May, p. 3, c. 1. ‘They are not bound to grub you, don’t you know,’ said Mr. Sleasey, ‘and they try the starving dodge on you sometimes.’

2. (old).—To beg; to ask for alms, especially food.

3. (American).—To study, or read hard; to ‘sweat.’

To ride grub, verb. phr. (old).—To be sulky; crusty (q.v.); disagreeable.

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue. To ride grub, to be sullen or out of temper.

To grub along, verb. phr. (common).—To make one’s way as best one can; ‘to rub along.’

1888. Daily Telegraph, 19 Oct. When a youth left school to follow the pursuits of life he found that he had to grub along as best he could.

Grubbing, subs. (common).—Eating.

1819. Moore, Tom Crib. What with snoozing, high grubbing, and guzzling like Cloe.

Grubbery, subs. (common).—(1) an eating-house. Also (2) a dining-room, and (3) the mouth.

Grubbing-crib, subs. (general).—1. An eating-house. Grubbing-crib faker = the landlord of a cheap cookshop. Fr., le nourrisseur; Sp., un ostalero. See Grub Shop, sense 2.

English Synonyms.—Grubbery; grubby-, or grubbing-ken; grub-shop; guttle-shop; hash-house; mungarly casa; prog-shop; slap-bang shop; tuck-shop; waste-butt.

French Synonyms.—Un bourre-boyaux (popular = a stuff-your-guts); un claquedents (popular, also = a brothel, or punting-house); une guingette (general); une mangeoire (popular = a grubbery: manger = to eat); un mattais (popular); un gargot (thieves’).

German Synonym.—Achilebajes (from Heb., Ochal = to eat).

Spanish Synonym.—Ostaleria, or Osteria (also = lush-crib).

1823. Bee, Dict. of the Turf, s.v.

2. (tramps’).—A workhouse. For synonyms, see Spinniken. Sometimes Grubbiken.

1851–61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, iii., 416. I know all the good houses, and the tidy grubbikens—that’s the unions where there’s little or nothing to do for the food we gets.

Grubble, verb. (colloquial).—(1) To feel for at random or in the dark; and (2) (venery) to grope (q.v.).

1684. Dryden, The Disappointment. ‘Prologue.’ The doughty bullies enter bloody drunk, Invade and grubble one another’s punk.

Grubby, subs. (thieves’).—Food. [A diminutive of Grub (q.v.).]

d. 1842. Maginn, Vidocq’s Song. I pattered in flash like a covey knowing, Tol lol, etc. Ay, bub or grubby, I say.

Adj. (colloquial).—Dirty; slovenly.

d. 1845. Hood, A Black Job. Like a grubby lot of sooty sweeps or colliers.

Grub-hunting, subs. (tramps’).—Begging for food.

Grub-shite, verb. (old).—To make foul or dirty; to bewray.—Grose.

Grub-shop, (or -crib, -trap, etc.), subs. (common).—1. The mouth; and (2) a grubbery (q.v.). For synonyms, see Potato-trap.

1840. Thackeray, Comic Almanack, p. 229. ‘That’s the grub shop,’ said my lord, ‘where we young gentlemen wot has money buys our wittles.’

3. See Grubbing-crib in both senses.

Grub-stake, subs. (American).—Food and other necessaries furnished to mining prospectors in return for a share in the ‘finds.’ Hence, to grub-stake = to speculate after this fashion.

1884. Butterworth, Zig-zag Journeys. When miners become so poor that they are not able to furnish the necessary tools and food with which to ‘go prospecting’, a third party of sufficient means offers to furnish tools and provisions on condition that he is to have a certain interest in anything that may be found.

1891. Gunter, Miss Nobody of Nowhere, p. 100. He grub-staked us and we used to work on the Tillie mine together.

Grub-street, subs. (colloquial).—The world of cheap, mean, needy authors. [Originally a street near Moorfields, changed in 1830 to Milton Street.]

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. Grub-street news, false, forg’d.

1728. Pope, Dunciad, iii., 135. Shall take through grub-street his triumphant round.

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. A Grub-street writer means a hackney author, who manufactures books for the booksellers.

1813. J. and H. Smith, Horace in London, ‘The Classic Villa.’ Grub-street, ’tis called.

1821. Egan, Life in London, i. Few, if any, writers, out of the great mass of living scribblers, whether of Grub-Street fabrication, or of University passport … possess souls above buttons.

1892. Hume Nisbet, Bushranger’s Sweetheart, p. 119. We are going it, have got our agents in Grub Street.

Gruel, subs. (common).—1. A beating; punishment (q.v.). For synonyms, see Tanning. Hence, to get (or give) one’s gruel = to castigate, or be well beaten; also killed. In the prize ring = to knock a man out for good. Gruelled = floored; also Gruelling.

1815. Scott, Guy Mannering, ch. xxviii. He gathered in general, that they expressed great indignation against some individual. ‘He shall have his gruel,’ said one.

1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends. ‘Babes in the Wood.’ He that was mildest in mood gave the truculent rascal his gruel.

1849. C. Kingsley, Alton Locke, ch. xii. They were as well gruelled as so many posters, before they got to the stile.

1888. Sporting Life, 15 Dec. Preferred to be easily knocked out to taking his gruel like a man.

1891. Licensed Vict. Gaz., 23 Jan. Both men were badly punished, but George had, of course, the lion’s share of the gruel.

1891. Licensed Vict. Mirror, 30 Jan., p. 7, c. 3. All the advantage rested with the same side for some little time, Paddock getting such a gruelling that his head swelled out like a pumpkin.