griffe meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

griffe

noun

/ɡɹɪf/

Etymology Borrowed from French griffe (“claw”).

A claw-like ornament at the base of a column.

The primary use of this is to give the column a broader base and to diminish the amount of the cutting away of the solid stone. The griffe, however, is often used for elaborate ornamentation, being carved into vegetable or even animal form.2013, Russell Sturgis, Francis A. Davis, Sturgis' Illustrated Dictionary of Architecture and Building: An Unabridged Reprint of the 1901-2 Edition, Courier Corporation, →ISBN, page 323:

griffe

noun

Etymology From Cajun French (in period American English usage) and from general French griffe (in reference to such people in e.g. Haiti), perhaps from (American) Spanish grifo (supposedly "curly-haired").

US, Dated, Dialectal, Historical A person of mixed (black and white) race, especially the offspring of a mulatto (person of mixed black and white ancestry) and a person of fully black ancestry.

Saint-Domingue's complex system of racial classification allowed for no fewer than eight “mixed” racial parental combinations that could produce a griffe, as infamously calculated by Moreau.2017, Terry Rey, The Priest and the Prophetess: Abbé Ouvière, Romaine Rivière, and the Revolutionary Atlantic World, Oxford University Press, →ISBN:

Coordinate terms: list in mulatto