grig
verbEtymology Borrowed from Irish griog.
1
To irritate or annoy.
grig
noun/ɡɹɪɡ/
Etymology The word is often used in the phrase "merry as a grig". The word is of uncertain origin, though various theories have been suggested, such as a corruption of "merry as a cricket" or "merry as a Greek", as in William Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida: "Then she's a merry Greek indeed." Johnson suggested that the word originally meant "anything below the natural size" (compare Swedish krik and Scots crick).
1
Obsolete A dwarf.
2
A cricket or grasshopper.
- The black rooks will fly away, my son, and you'll come back as brown as a berry, and as merry as a grig.1926, Hope Mirrlees, chapter 5, in Lud-in-the-Mist:
3
A small or young eel.
- [W]e assembled at one o'clock, at two sat down to dinner, consisting of capital stewed grigs, a dish Mrs Burt was famous for dressing, a large joint of roast or boiled meat, with proper vegetables and a good-sized pudding or pie […] .1808–10, William Hickey, Memoirs of a Georgian Rake, Folio Society 1995, p. 41
4
Specifically, the broad-nosed eel. See glut.
- Derived terms
- lively as a grig, merry as a grig