Category: Word of the Day – G

ETYMOLOGY
from grout (sediment, dregs, lees), taken as the type of something big and coarse; 
for definition 2: there is confusion with great; perhaps the sound recalled the Dutch groot

EXAMPLE
“…professed her self a nonne in the yeare of our lord a. M. and. lxxv. to serue the deuyll in the monkes hypocresy, & in ye burnynge heates of Sodome. So daynty mowthed wer these greasy grouteheades, and so crafty in their generacyon, that they could fynde out kynges doughters to serue their lustes, and yet apere chast ghostly fathers to the world. Thurstinus a monke of Cane in Normandy…”

From: The First Two Partes of the Actes or vnchast examples of the Englysh Votaryes gathered out of their owne legenades and chronycles
By John Bale, 1551

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin gaudium (joy) + –loquus (speaking) + -ent

EXAMPLE
Marianne made a gaudiloquent speech after winning the coveted Woman of the Year award.

ETYMOLOGY
from the name of Sir Edmund Beckett, first Lord Grimthorpe (1816–1905), whose restoration of St. Albans Cathedral, completed in 1904, aroused fierce criticism and controversy

EXAMPLE
“…Talking of Lord Grimthorpe reminds us of an honour that has recently been done unto his name. It shall not be the Antiquary’s fault if this honour is not perpetuated; so that, perchance, the dictionaries of the future may immortalize his titular name in the same way as they have already treated the family appellation of Boycott. Last November, a group of appreciative visitors were standing in the nave of the abbey church of Selby, discussing its probable reparation. “Ah!” remarked one, “if only the wealthy and generous man could be found, what a fine field for his labours!” To this a keen and well-known Yorkshire ecclesiologist replied: “Heaven forbid! the building might be grimthorped!…”

From: The Antiquary,
A Magazine Devoted to the Study of the Past, Vol. XXI, January – June, 1890
‘Notes of the Month’

ETYMOLOGY
from gyno– (combining form denoting female, woman) + Greek -ϕαγος (eating) + -ite

EXAMPLE
“…If our Ulysses, thus rejuvenated by his Minerva, has not fully made up his mind to make
a Penelope of Miss Jemima, all I can say is, that he is worse than Polyphemus, who was only an Anthropophagos; —
He preys upon the weaker sex, and is a Gynophagite!…”

From: My Novel
By Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1853

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin gracilis (slender) + -ous

EXAMPLE
“…Gracilious, slender, small, thin, soft and weak…”

From: The Academy of Armory; or, A Storehouse of Armory and Blazon
By Randle Holme, 1688
Some few terms of Art used by Historians in the description of Fish and Sea-Worms

ETYMOLOGY
echoic;
compare globbe, glop, gulp (to swallow greedily);
also Danish (dial.) gluffe, Swedish (dial.) gluffa (to eat hastily or noisily (said e.g. of pigs)), gluffi (a glutton)

EXAMPLE
Big John is such a gloffer, he never refuses a second helping, and often goes back for a third.

ETYMOLOGY
apparently from Old French garbouille (confused mess, confusion, disorder), of uncertain and disputed origin;
From the O.E.D.: “it is likely that this word and the related garboil v. have been associated with garble v. and garble n., and probably regarded as variants of these”

EXAMPLE
“…and after long and mature debating off the mattar, forasmuch as itt appeared the Mayor to have ben a great sturrer of this garboyle, and to be a man that att sondry tymes hadde deluded wyth delayes the sayde commissioners whereby the matter cowlde grow to none ende…”

From: Selections from the Records of the City of Oxford
Edited by Willilam H, Turner, 1880
‘1543, May 22. Decree of the Privy Councell in the matters of Difference between the University and City.‘

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin gracilentus (slender, thin),
from gracilis (gracile, gracefully slender) + -entus

EXAMPLE
“…his old  scratch-wig  awry,  and  his  garments  sadly  bespeaking wretchedness;  we  think  we  can  see  him, with  this  outward  repulsiveness  of  appearance,  sitting down  to  give  a  gracilent  opinion  of  the  canine species…”

From: The Ladies’ Repository
A Monthly Periodical Devoted to Literature and Religion, January, 1852
“Thoughts on a Canine Subject”
By James Pummill

ETYMOLOGY
from gesture + -ous

EXAMPLE
“…vvhich hath learned to spoyle & deuour folk to make vvidovves, destroy their houses, & make their Cities desert. Some be as foyinge, gesturous, and counterfeicting of any thing by ymitacion as Apes. Some Forlyke, are suttle, wylie, deceiptfull, and crafty to entrappe and catche the innocent at aduauntage…”

From: The Touchstone of Complexions
By Levinus Lemnius
Translated by Thomas Newton, 1576

ETYMOLOGY
alteration of gobble

EXAMPLE
“…A dinner nice the oad folks have,”
At race-time, ollis ‘ood, –
That day, they had a toad-in-hole,
A dish that’s deadly gud

But when oad Styles to goffle it,
Bargun, he soon ded cry out: –
“Missus! I thinks as how, taa-day,
“Yow’ve put the meller’s eye out!…”

From: John Noakes & Mary Styles:
Or, “An Essex Calf’s” Visit to Tiptree Races
By Charles Clark, 1839