Etymologically
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grassy

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈɡɹɑːsi/[1]
  • US: /ˈɡɹæsi/[1]

Etymology

It is formed from English grass + -y,[2][3][4][5][6] first recorded as Middle English grasī.[7] The base noun comes from Old English græs, from Proto-Germanic *grasą.[3] Similar adjectives meaning covered with or abounding in grass are Middle Dutch grāsich (now grazig), Old High German grasag (whence grasec and German grasig) and Old Norse grǫsugr.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of ground, covered with grass, having plenty of grass: about 1440, in the Middle English translation of Palladius's De re Rustica, "In grasy cold lond, vynes rootes may Ek now be wrie".[7][2] Etymonline dates the word to the mid-15th century,[3] and Dictionary.com to 1505–15.[5]

Semantic evolution

From ground covered with grass the word spread to things resembling grass in colour or appearance (1567, in Maplet's Greene Forest), to things made of or containing grass (1590, in Spenser's Faerie Queene) and, since 1633, to tastes and smells reminiscent of grass.[2] Johnson (1755) defined it only as covered with or abounding with grass, quoting Spenser and Milton's "grassy turf".[6] Merriam-Webster also records it of animals fed on grass.[8] The phrase the grassy knoll, from the supposed position of a second gunman at the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, came to mean a place for a secret criminal act or a conspiracy.[4] In American underworld slang grassy meant likely to turn informer, as in William Burroughs's Naked Lunch (1959).[9]

Timeline

  • c. 1440 – of ground, covered with grass.[7][2]
  • 1567 – resembling grass in colour or appearance.[2]
  • 1590 – made of or consisting of grass, in Spenser.[2]
  • 1633 – of a taste or smell, reminiscent of grass.[2]
  • 1959 – US underworld slang, likely to become an informer.[9]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Covered with or full of grass: They had lunch on a grassy bank by the river.[10][8][2]
  2. Like grass in colour, look or smell, or tasting of grass: a grassy olive oil.[10][8][2]
  3. Made of or containing grass.[10][2]

Word family

  • grassiness
  • ungrassy

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  6. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  7. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  8. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  9. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins