Etymology

greaseball

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Today it means: A person of Italian descent. Full definition →

English grease ← Middle English grece ← Anglo-Norman grece
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The story

  1. Latincrassus
  2. Vulgar Latin*crassia
  3. Anglo-Normangrece
  4. Middle Englishgrece
  5. Englishgrease
  6. English todaygreaseball

From grease + -ball.; possibly derived from the fact that Italians and Italian-Americans are stereotyped as having greasy or greased-up hair.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.