-- Days of grace (Com.), the days immediately following the day when a
bill or note becomes due, which days are allowed to the debtor or payer
to make payment in. In Great Britain and the United States, the days of
grace are three, but in some countries more, the usages of merchants
being different. -- Good graces, favor; friendship. -- Grace cup. (a) A
cup or vessel in which a health is drunk after grace. (b) A health
drunk after grace has been said.
The grace cup follows to his sovereign's health.
Hing.
-- Grace drink, a drink taken on rising from the table; a grace cup.
To [Queen Margaret, of Scotland] . . . we owe the custom of the
grace drink, she having established it as a rule at her table, that
whosoever staid till grace was said was rewarded with a bumper.
Encyc. Brit.
-- Grace hoop, a hoop used in playing graces. See Grace, n., 13. --
Grace note (Mus.), an appoggiatura. See Appoggiatura, and def. 11
above. -- Grace stroke, a finishing stoke or touch; a coup de grace. --
Means of grace, means of securing knowledge of God, or favor with God,
as the preaching of the gospel, etc. -- To do grace, to reflect credit
upon.
Content to do the profession some grace.
Shak.
-- To say grace, to render thanks before or after a meal. -- With a
good grace, in a fit and proper manner grace fully; graciously. -- With
a bad grace, in a forced, reluctant, or perfunctory manner;
ungraciously.
What might have been done with a good grace would at least be done
with a bad grace.
Macaulay.
Syn. -- Elegance; comeliness; charm; favor; kindness; mercy. -- Grace,
Mercy. These words, though often interchanged, have each a distinctive
and peculiar meaning. Grace, in the strict sense of the term, is
spontaneous favor to the guilty or undeserving; mercy is kindness or
compassion to the suffering or condemned. It was the grace of God that
opened a way for the exercise of mercy toward men. See Elegance.
Grace (?), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Graced (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Gracing
(?).] 1. To adorn; to decorate; to embellish and dignify.
Great Jove and Phoebus graced his noble line.
Pope.
We are graced with wreaths of victory.
Shak.