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.