grunsel

plural grunsels

1. obsoleteObsolete spelling of groundsill (“threshold”).

   South beside the altar's ledge Fair Zenild drew her knife North upon the grunsel edge Sir Schinnild lost his life.

   1804, William Herbert, “Sir Ebba”, in Miscellaneous Poems, volume I

   1 more example

   Next came one Who mourn'd in earnest, when the Captive Ark Maim'd his brute Image, head and hands lopt off In his own Temple, on the grunsel edge, Where he fell flat […]

   1667, John Milton, “Book XVI”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 458–61

plural grunsels

1. alternativecountableuncountableAlternative form of groundsel (“any of several species of Senecio, a genus of the daisy family”).

   Blue skippers in sunny hours ope and shut Where wormwood and grunsel flowers by the cart ruts […]

   1841–1864, John Clare, "We passed by green closes" (one of the "Knight Transcripts", copied from Clare's manuscript poems written while he was involuntarily confined at the Northampton General Lunatic Asylum)

   4 more examples

   Basked in the sun, or plunged into thy stream's [1.20] Alternate, all a summer's day, or coursed Over the sandy fields, and dashed the flowers Of yellow grunsel […]

   1799, William Wordsworth, The Two-Part Prelude, Book I

   Travelled for some miles along the open country, which was all without hedgerows, sometimes arable, sometimes moorish, and often whole tracts covered with grunsel.

   1803, Dorothy Wordsworth, Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland, First Week

   If thou return not, Gammer o'er her pail evermore the petlings, with sad brow, Will look for thee upon the holly bough, Where thou didst chirp thy signal note, ere on The lowly grunsel thou didst light […]

   1845, Thomas Cooper, The Purgatory of Suicides, Book the Fourth, Stanza IX

   "Yes; Messrs. So-and-so lets me go in their grounds and get the bird-seed. Yer see, I got grun'sel here, and plantain and chick-weed"

   1894, Frederic Morrell Holmes, Some Unfasionable Slums: Second Round—South London, in The Quiver: The Illustrated Magazine for Sunday and General Reading