grouse

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   To complain or grumble.

   If you're cast for fatigue by a sergeant unkind, Don't grouse like a woman, nor crack on, nor blind; Be handy and civil, and then you will find That it's beer for the young British soldier.

2. 2
   adj

   Excellent.

   I had a grouse day.

Simplified etymology

Grouse in the sense “complain or grumble,” recorded in the early 19th century, may be related to obsolete grutch and its variants grouch and grudge. If so, the group ultimately traces to Old French grouchier, “to grumble or murmur,” but the relationship is uncertain.

Uncertain; possibly from British dialectal groosh (“excellent, very good”) (Lothian (Scotland)), grosh (northeast Lancashire) and groshy (“having thriving vegetation; juicy and tender; of weather: good for vegetation, rainy”) (Lancashire, Yorkshire), grushie (“having thriving vegetation”) (Scotland); from Scots groosh (“excellent, very good”) (Lothian, obsolete), grush (obsolete), grushie, grushy (“growing healthily or lushly; excellent, very good”) (both archaic), from gross (“lacking refinement, coarse; fat; large”) + -ie (suffix meaning ‘rather, somewhat’).

Topics

External links

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