grig
/ɡɹɪɡ/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 1.60 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A cricket or grasshopper.
noun
Specifically, the broad-nosed eel. See glut.
Example Sentences
- "The black rooks will fly away, my son, and you'll come back as brown as a berry, and as merry as a grig."
- "[W]e assembled at one o'clock, at two sat down to dinner, consisting of capital stewed grigs, a dish Mrs Burt was famous for dressing, a large joint of roast or boiled meat, with proper vegetables and a good-sized pudding or pie […] ."
- "The further method of tillage pursued, was to make fallows; and if the season permitted, so that the ground could be cleared and burnt off, to destroy the grig or heath, […]"
- "Smell of grilled beefsteaks to the starving gnawing their vitals. Desire to grig people."
Etymology
The word is often used in the phrase "merry as a grig". The word is of uncertain origin, though various theories have been suggested, such as a corruption of "merry as a cricket" or "merry as a Greek", as in William Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida: "Then she's a merry Greek indeed." Johnson suggested that the word originally meant "anything below the natural size" (compare Swedish krik and Scots crick).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: grug, grig