The Public School Word-book / A conribution to to a historical glossary of words phrases and turns of expression obsolete and in current use peculiar to our great public schools together with some that have been or are modish at the universities

by John Stephen Farmer

Grass, subs. (Royal Military Academy).—Vegetables.

To be sent to grass, verb. phr. (University).—To be rusticated; to RECEIVE A TRAVELLING SCHOLARSHIP (q.v.).

1794. Gent. Mag., p. 1085. And was very near rustication [at Cambridge] merely for kicking up a row after a beakering party. “Soho, Jack!” briskly rejoined another, “almost presented with a travelling fellowship? very nigh being SENT TO GRASS, hey?”

Greaser, subs. 1. (Durham: obsolete).—A cad.

2. (Winchester: obsolete).—A mode of torture performed by rubbing a boy’s head hard with the knuckles.—Mansfield (c. 1840).

Great-go (or Greats), subs. (Cambridge).—The final examination for the B.A. degree: cf. Little-go. At Oxford, GREATER.

1841. Prince of the New-made Baccalere, Oxford. Great-go is passed.

1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, ch. x. Both small and GREAT are sufficiently distant to be altogether ignored, if we are that way inclined.

1856-7. Thackeray, King of Brentford’s Test., st. 7. At college, though not fast, Yet his little-go and GREAT-GO, He creditably pass’d.

1871. Morning Advertiser, April 28. Yes, Mr. Lowe has been plucked for his GREAT GO.