Chapter Griffen Horse to Groat of G by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Grind To work up for an examination; to grind up the subjects set, and to grind into the memory the necessary cram. The allusion is to a mill, and the analogy evident.
   To grind one down. To reduce the price asked; to lower wages. A knife, etc., is gradually reduced by grinding.
   To take a grind is to take a constitutional walk; to cram into the smallest space the greatest amount of physical exercise. This is the physical grind. The literary grind is a turn at hard study.
   To take a grinder is to insult another by applying the left thumb to the nose and revolving the right hand round it, as if working a hand-organ or coffeemill. This insulting retort is given when someone has tried to practise on your credulity, or to impose upon your good faith.

Grinders The double teeth which grind the food put into the mouth. The Preacher speaks of old age as the time when "the grinders cease because they are few" (Ecc. xii. 3). (See Almond Tree.)

Grisaille A style of painting in gray tints, resembling solid bodies in relief, such as ornaments of cornices, etc.

Grise A step. (See Grecian Stairs .)

"Which as a grise or step may help these lovers
Into your favour."
Shakespeare: Othello, i.3.

Grisilda or Griselda. The model of enduring patience and conjugal obedience. She was the daughter of Janicola, a poor charcoal-burner, but became the wife of Walter, Marquis of Saluzzo. The marquis put her humility and obedience to three severe trials, but she submitted to them all without a murmur: (1) Her infant daughter was taken from her, and secretly conveyed to the Queen of Pavia to bring up, while Grisilda was made to believe that it had been murdered. (2) Four years later she had a son, who was also taken from her, and sent to be brought up with her sister. When the little girl was twelve years old, the marquis told Grisilda he intended to divorce her and marry another; so she was stripped of all her fine clothes and sent back to her father's cottage. On the "wedding day" the much-abused Grisilda was sent for to receive "her rival" and prepare her for the ceremony. When her lord saw in her no spark of jealousy, he told her the "bride" was her own daughter. The moral of the tale is this: If Grisilda submitted without a murmur to these trials of her husband, how much more ought we to submit without repining to the trials sent us by God.
   This tale is the last of Boccaccio's Decameron; it was rendered by Petrarch into a Latin romance entitled De Obedientia et Fide Uxoria Mythologia, and forms The Clerkës Tale in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Miss Edgeworth has a novel entitled The Modern Griselda.

Grist All grist that comes to my mill. All is appropriated that comes to me; all is made use of that comes in my way. Grist is all that quantity of corn which is to be ground or crushed at one time. The phrase means, all that is brought - good, bad, and indifferent corn, with all refuse and waste - is put into the mill and ground together. (See Emolument.)
   To bring grist to the mill. To supply customers or furnish supplies.

Grizel or Grissel. Octavia, wife of Marc Antony and sister of Augustus Caesar, is called the "patient Grizel" of Roman story. (See Grisilda.)

"For patience she will prove a second Grissel."
Shakespeare: Taming of the Shrew, ii. I.

Groaning Cake A cake prepared for those who called at the house of a woman in confinement "to see the baby."

Groaning Chair The chair used by women after confinement when they received visitors.

Groaning Malt A strong ale brewed for the gossips who attend at the birth of a child, and for those who come to offer to a husband congratulations at the auspicious event. A cheese, called the Ken-no, or "groaning cheese," was also made for the occasion. (See Ken-No.)

"Meg Merrilies descended to the kitchen to secure her share of the groaning malt." - Sir W. Scott: Guy Mannering, chap. iii.

Groat From John o' Groat's house to the Land's End. From Dan to Beersheba, from one end of Great Britain to the other. John o' Groat was a Dutchman, who settled in the most northerly point of Scotland in the reign of James IV., and immortalised himself by the way he settled a dispute