grig

plural grigs

1. obsoleteA 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.

1. ShropshireUKdialectalHeath or heather.

   The further method of tillage pursued, was to make fallows; and if the season permitted, so that the ground could be cleared and burnt off, to destroy the grig or heath, […]

   1791, Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, Transactions of the Society of Arts, volume 9, page 80

present singular third person grigs · participle present grigging · participle past grigged · past grigged

1. IrelandUSTo irritate or annoy.

   Smell of grilled beefsteaks to the starving gnawing their vitals. Desire to grig people.

   1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 6: Hades]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 104