grig

English

Etymology

The word is often used in the phrase "merry as a grig". The word is of uncertain origin, though various theories have been suggested, such as a corruption of "merry as a cricket" or "merry as a Greek", as in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida: "Then she's a merry Greek indeed." Johnson suggested that the word originally meant "anything below the natural size" (compare Swedish "krik" and Scottish "crick").

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ɡɹɪɡ/

Noun

grig (plural grigs)

1. little creature;
   1. A cricket or grasshopper.
      • 1926, Hope Mirrlees, Lud-in-the-Mist (Ch. 5):

        The black rooks will fly away, my son, and you'll come back as brown as a berry, and as merry as a grig.

   2. An insect in the family Prophalangopsidae, related to katydids
   3. Any small eel.
   4. The broad-nosed eel. See Glut
2. heath.

Verb

grig (third-person singular simple present grigs, present participle grigging, simple past and past participle grigged)

1. (transitive) To irritate or annoy.