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.