grubble, to grope, feel; ‘Now, let me roll and grubble thee’ (spoken of a lot which he has taken in his hand, before drawing it out), Dryden, Don Sebastian, i. 1 (Antonio).
grudgins, coarse meal; ‘Annone, meslin or grudgins, the corne whereof browne bread is made for the meynie’, Cotgrave; Fletcher and Rowley, Maid of Mill, iii. 3. 17. Formerly in prov. use in the Midlands (EDD.). Cp. F. grugeons, lumps of crystalline sugar in brown sugar; in Cotgrave ‘the smallest fruit on a tree’. See [gurgeons].
grum, surly, cross, ‘glum’. Etherege, Man of Mode, ii. 1 (Old Bellair); Wycherley, Plain Dealer, iii. 1 (Novel). In prov. use in many parts of England, also in America (Franklin’s Autobiography, 51), see Century Dict. and EDD. Norw. dial. grum, proud, haughty (Aasen), Dan. grum, fierce, angry.
†grumbledory, a grumbler, B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Humour, v. 4 (Carlo).
grunter, a pig. Brome, Jovial Crew, ii. 1 (Song). In common prov. use in the north country (EDD.).
grunting-cheat, a pig; lit. ‘a thing that grunts’; from cheat, a cant word used in the general sense of ‘thing’. Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, v. 1 (Ferret); Harman, Caveat, p. 83; also gruntling-cheat, Middleton, Roaring Girl, v. 1 (Trapdoor). See [cheat].
grutch, to ‘grudge’, repine, murmur. Udall, Paraph. Erasmus, fo. cccxlv; Spenser, F. Q. ii. 2. 34; ‘I grutche, I repyne agaynst a thyng, Je grommelle’, Palsgrave. A Lancashire and E. Anglian word (EDD.). ME. grucche (Chaucer, C. T. A. 3863). OF. (Picard) groucher (OF. grocer), ‘murmurer’ (La Curne). See Moisy (s.v. Groucher).
gryphon, a fabulous monster, a kind of lion with an eagle’s head; a griffin. Milton, P. L. ii. 943; spelt gryfon, Spenser, F. Q. i. 5. 8. F. ‘griffon, a gripe or griffon’ (Cotgr.).
G-sol-re-ut, in old music, the octave of the lower G or lowest note in the old scale. It was denoted by the letter G, and sung to the syllable sol when it occurred in the second hexachord, which began with C; to the syllable re in the third hexachord, which began with F; and to the syllable ut when it began the fourth hexachord. Peacham, Comp. Gentleman, c. 11, p. 104.
guard, an ornamental border or trimming on a garment. Much Ado, i. 1. 289. ‘The orig. meaning may have been that of a binding to keep the edge of the cloth from fraying’, NED.