grass

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /ɡrɑːs/, US /ɡræs/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English gras, inherited from Old English græs (also gærs, “herb, plant, grass”),^[2][3][4] from Proto-Germanic *grasą,^[2][4] also the source of Old Frisian gers, Dutch and German Gras and Gothic gras.^[2][3] Watkins traces it to Proto-Indo-European *ghre- (“to grow, become green”), which would relate it to grow and green;^[2][5][6] Boutkan considers Latin grāmen “grass” the only reliable cognate and proposes a substrate origin.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Herbage in general, about 725, in Genesis A.^[7][3] The compound græsgrēne “grass-green” is earlier.^[3]

Semantic evolution

A small herb or medicinal plant is from 1297, now obsolete.^[7] Grassy ground and pasture are from the 13th and 15th centuries.^[4] A plant of the grass family as opposed to cereals is from 1548, and in botany from 1611.^[7] Grass widow first meant, in the early 16th century, an unmarried woman with a child, and in the 19th a wife whose husband is away.^[5][4] The grass is always greener developed in the United States in the late 19th century.^[5] Keep off the grass is from 1843.^[2] Slang “marijuana” is American, from 1932 in Etymonline and 1943 in the OED.^[2][7] An informer is British slang from 1929, probably rhyming slang (grasshopper, copper), and the verb, to inform, also from 1929.^[8][9]

Timeline

• c. 725 – herbage, in Genesis A.^[7]
• 1548 – a plant of the grass family.^[7]
• early 16th century – grass widow.^[5]
• 1929 – an informer (British slang).^[8]
• 1932 – marijuana.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. Plants with long, narrow green leaves that cover lawns, fields and the like.
2. Any plant of the family that includes cereals, bamboo and the like.
3. Ground covered with grass; a lawn or pasture.
4. (slang) marijuana.
5. (British slang) A police informer.

Verb

1. To cover with grass.
2. (British slang, often grass on) To inform the police about someone.

Word family

• grassless
• grasslike
• grassward

Related words

• grasshopper
• grassy
• green
• grow
• graze

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
9. ^ Dalzell, Tom; Victor, Terry, eds. (2013), The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 2nd ed., London: Routledge