Category: G

Characterised by the decay of body tissues, which become black and smelly. Referring to, or affected by, gangrene.  

The word grub has been used as a colloquial synonym tor food since the mid seventeenth century, but long before that, dating back to the fourteenth century, it was used as a verb meaning to dig. This original dig sense of the word probably inspired its later food sense: root vegetables, such as potatoes or…

Made by mixing hard liquor with water, grog owes its name to Edward Vernon, a British admiral whose men nicknamed him Old Grog because he always wore a grogram coat (grogram is a coarse fabric, its name deriving from the French gros grain, meaning coarse grain). In 1740, Old Grog instituted the policy of adding…

Whereas the word spice is related to the words specialty and specific (because spices were sold by merchants who specialized in specific items), the word grocery is related to gross. Many centuries ago, the Late Latin word grossus, meaning large or bulky, gave rise to the Medieval Latin grossarius, the job name of someone who…

Unlike English, which no longer assigns a gender to its nouns, Latin classifies all its nouns as masculine, feminine, or neuter. Some Latin nouns, however, once had two spellings, each representing a different gender, as was the case with the Vulgar Latin craticula and craticulum. These two words meant the same thing (little wicker screen)…

Although we now use griddles and gridirons only to cook food, they were once used as instruments of torture, that is, as large, metal grates that inquisitors would set a person on and set a fire under. This may have been the original meaning of griddle and gridiron, since the words are used as names…