greaves

greaves¹ leg armour

Etymology

The word for the leg armour is the plural of greave.^[4][5] It is inherited from Middle English greves, borrowed from Old French greves, the plural of greve (“shin; armour for the leg”),^[6][7][4][8] which is recorded in French from the 12th century.^[7][4] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded in the sense of leg armour from 1404.^[9] The OED and the Oxford Dictionary of English call the French word of unknown origin;^[7][8] the Shorter Oxford and Onions compare Spanish greba and modern French dialect grève and graive, the upper part of the leg.^[1][10] Merriam-Webster Unabridged and the American Heritage Dictionary suggest that it is the French word for the parting of the hair, from graver (“to part the hair”), of Germanic origin, because the ridge down the front of many greaves was thought to resemble a parting.^[11][12][13] Klein traced it through Portuguese to an Egyptian Arabic word for a stocking.^[14][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Armour for the leg below the knee: the first record in the Middle English Dictionary is from the wardrobe accounts of Edward III (1345–49), which list two pairs of greues;^[6] Etymonline dates the plural to the mid-14th century.^[4] The OED's first quotation is from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (c. 1400), where the knight's legs are wrapped in steel with luflych greuez.^[7][6]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its meaning, and is usually plural.^[1][11] In Middle English it appears in lists of plate armour beside cuisses and sabatons, as in a Lydgate poem of about 1421.^[6] About 1600 the singular could also mean the shin or leg on which a greave is worn, a sense that did not last.^[7] Johnson (1755) defined greaves as armour for the legs, "a sort of boots", noted that it lacked a singular, and quoted the greaves of brass in 1 Samuel 17:6.^[15]

Timeline

• 1345–49 – armour for the leg below the knee, in the wardrobe accounts of Edward III.^[6] The OED's first quotation is from about 1400.^[7]
• 1600 – the shin or leg on which a greave is worn (obsolete).^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. Armour for the leg below the knee, covering especially the shin; usually used in the plural.^{[7][1][11][12]}

Word family

• greaved

greaves² tallow residue

Etymology

The word for the residue of tallow is borrowed from Low German greven, the plural of greve,^{[11][1][16][17][5]} from Middle Low German grēve.^[11][13] It corresponds to Old High German griubo, also griobo, whose modern form is German Griebe (“refuse of lard or tallow”),^{[1][16][18][14]} and Merriam-Webster relates it to Old English grēot (“sand”), the source of grit.^[11][13] Its further origin is unknown.^[1][16][14] The Low German word was also borrowed into Danish, as grever.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The fibrous matter or skin in animal fat, which settles when the fat is melted and is pressed into cakes as food for dogs: 1614 in the OED.^[19] Hoad and Collins date it to the 17th century,^[16][17] and Dictionary.com to 1605–15.^[18]

Semantic evolution

The Shorter Oxford and Weekley describe it as originally a whalers' word.^[1][2] The cakes of greaves were used as dog food and as fish bait.^[1][19] In the 19th century the word, often in the form graves, was used in dialects from Northumberland and Cheshire to Leicestershire, Oxfordshire and Suffolk for the refuse of meat, skin and fat left from tallow-making, pressed into blocks and sold for dogs, and also for the maggots found in such refuse.^[20] Merriam-Webster Unabridged treats it as a word for crackling, the crisp residue of rendered fat.^[11]

Timeline

• 1614 – the fibrous residue left when animal fat is melted down for tallow.^[19][16]

Meanings

Noun

1. The fibrous residue left when animal fat is melted down to make tallow, pressed into cakes as dog food or bait.^[17][1][19]
2. The crisp pieces left after fat is rendered; cracklings.^[11][13]