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.