Grind-days, subs. (Loretto).—The GRIND-DAYS occur twice a year: in October and March. Privileged boys, school officers, Sixth and Fifth, and probably Upper Fifth, go by train to various places, such as Peebles, Pomathorn, &c., and walk, perhaps about twenty miles, to some other place, where they dine, returning by train. Some of the rest cross the Pentlands, and the Juniors go up the highest Pentland.
Grinder, subs. (general).—A private tutor; a COACH (q.v.).
1812. Miss Edgeworth, Patronage, ch. iii. Put him into the hands of a clever GRINDER or crammer, and they would soon cram the necessary portion of Latin and Greek into him.
1841. Punch, vol. i. p. 201. Then contriving to accumulate five guineas to pay a GRINDER, he routs out his old note-books from the bottom of his box and commences to read.
1841. A. Smith, “The London Medical Student” in Punch, i. p. 229. G was a GRINDER, who sharpen’d the fools.
1849. Thackeray, Pendennis, ch. v. She sent me down here with a GRINDER. She wants me to cultivate my neglected genius.
Grinding-mill, subs. (general).—The house of a tutor or COACH (q.v.), where students are prepared for an examination.
Groats. To save one’s groats, verb. phr. (old University).—To come off handsomely. [At the Universities nine groats are deposited in the hands of an academic officer by every person standing for a degree, which, if the depositor obtains, with honour, are returned to him.—Grose.]
Grotius-time, subs. (Winchester).—From 7 P.M. to 7.45 P.M. on Sundays, in Cloister-time (q.v.) when Sixth Book (q.v.) and Senior Part (q.v.) went into school to translate the work of that author.—Mansfield (c. 1840). Now obsolete.
Groute, verb (Marlborough and Cheltenham).—To work or study hard; to SWOT (q.v.).