GREEN TURTLE. The common name for the edible turtle, which does not yield tortoise-shell.
GREENWICH STARS. Those used for lunar computations in the nautical ephemeris.
GREEP. The old orthography of gripe.
GREGO. A coarse Levantine jacket, with a hood. A cant term for a rough great-coat.
GRENADE. Now restricted to hand-grenade, weighing about 2 lbs., and the fuze being previously lit, is conveniently thrown by hand from the tops of ships on to an enemy's deck, from the parapet into the ditch, or generally against an enemy otherwise difficult to reach. A number of grenades, moreover, being quilted together with their fuzes outwards, called a "bouquet," is fired short distances with good effect from mortars in the latter stages of a siege.
GRENADIERS. Formerly the right company of each battalion, composed of the largest men, and originally equipped for using hand-grenades. Now-a-days the companies of a regiment are equalized in size and other matters; and the title in the British army remains only to the fine regiment of grenadier guards.
GRENADO. The old name for a live shell. Thuanus says that they were first used at the siege of Wacklindonck, near Gueldres; and that their inventor, in an experiment in Venice, occasioned the burning of two-thirds of that city.
GREVE. A low flat sandy shore; whence graving is derived.
GREY-FRIARS. A name given to the oxen of Tuscany, with which the Mediterranean fleet was supplied.
GREY-HEAD. A fish of the haddock kind, taken on the coast of Galloway.