grig

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points: 6
Words With Friends: 8
Letters: 4

Pronunciation

/ɡɹɪɡ/

Definition of grig

6 senses · 2 parts of speech · etymology included

noun

(obsolete)A dwarf.

See all 6 definitions

noun

(obsolete)A dwarf.
A cricket or grasshopper.

“The black rooks will fly away, my son, and you'll come back as brown as a berry, and as merry as a grig.”
A small or young eel.

“[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 […] .”
Specifically, the broad-nosed eel. See glut.
(Shropshire, UK, dialectal)Heath or heather.

“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, […]”

verb

(transitive)To irritate or annoy.

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

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…

See full 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).