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griddle

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Etymology and origin of the English word griddle

Pronunciation

  • /ˈɡɹɪdəl/[1]

griddle1 cooking plate

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1225 Ancrene Riwle
Borrowed from
Old French gredil via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Latin crātis

Etymology

The word for the cooking plate is inherited from Middle English gridel, also gredil,[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French gredil (“gridiron”), also gridil,[5][6][2] which American Heritage, Merriam-Webster and Barnhart call Old North French,[4][3][7] and Etymonline, Klein and Weekley give in Anglo-Norman as gridil.[8][9][10] The Anglo-Norman Dictionary lists it under greil, recorded from the third quarter of the 12th century.[11] The OED takes the form as an apparent variant of greil and grail, modern French gril, and calls the relation between them obscure.[12] The further source is a diminutive of Latin crātis (“wickerwork, hurdle”), given as crātīcula (“small gridiron”) by American Heritage and Etymonline,[4][8][13] and as Late Latin crātīculum (“fine wickerwork”) by Merriam-Webster, Klein and Ayto, the last two marking it hypothetical.[3][9][14] Etymonline adds that the Latin noun is perhaps from a suffixed form of Proto-Indo-European *kert- (“to turn, entwine”).[8] Weekley notes that the word is also found in Gaelic, Irish and Welsh, so that the immediate source may have been partly Celtic.[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

An instrument of torture by fire, like a gridiron: the OED's first record is in the Ancrene Riwle, about 1225.[12] Barnhart also places the form gridil, a gridiron, in that text, probably before 1200.[7]

Semantic evolution

The word first named the barred frame of a gridiron, which is itself an alteration of the word, with griddle changed through association with iron.[14][8] The Middle English Dictionary records it for a grating or lattice, a grill for broiling, an iron plate for baking bread, a means of torture, and a draw-plate for making wire.[2] The sense "circular iron plate for baking cakes" is recorded from 1352,[12] or probably before 1300 in Barnhart,[7] and the gridiron senses died out by 1483 and 1746.[12] A verb "to cook on a griddle" appears by about 1430.[12][2] English dialects kept both senses in the 19th century: a gridiron or a grill of meat from Yorkshire and Cheshire to Cornwall, and a flat iron plate for oatcakes and bread in Scotland, Ireland, Cumberland, Lancashire and the Isle of Man.[15] In mining, a griddle was a wire-bottomed sieve, recorded from 1778, and griddle out meant to screen ore with it.[12][5] The American use for a griddlecake dates from 1845.[12]

Timeline

  • c. 1225 – an instrument of torture by fire, like a gridiron (obsolete by 1483).[12]
  • 1352 – a circular iron plate for baking cakes.[12]
  • before 1425 – a gridiron for cooking (obsolete by 1746).[12]
  • c. 1430 – verb, to cook on a griddle.[12]
  • 1778 – in mining, a wire-bottomed sieve.[12]
  • 1783 – griddle-cake.[8][7]
  • 1845 – in the United States, a griddlecake.[12]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A flat heated metal surface or pan on which food is cooked by dry heat, as on top of a stove: Pancakes were browning on the griddle.[4][16][3]
  2. A thick round iron plate with a hoop handle, for baking scones and the like; in Britain also called a girdle.[16][12]
  3. (mining) A sieve with a wire bottom, for screening ore.[12][5]
  4. (regional, Vermont and upstate New York) An eye of a stove.[4]
  5. (dialect) A gridiron.[3][15]

Verb

  1. To cook on a griddle.[16][3][4][12]
  2. (mining) To screen ore with a griddle.[12][5]

Word family

  • griddlecake

griddle2 to sing in the streets

Confidence
Unknown
First attested
1851 Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor

Etymology

The verb meaning to sing in the streets is of unknown origin.[12][3][17]

Earliest recorded meaning

To sing in the streets as a beggar: 1851, in Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor.[12]

Semantic evolution

It was a British slang word.[3] Hotten's slang dictionary of 1859 glosses griddling as singing in the streets,[17] and Mayhew has a husband who "got a month" for "griddling in the main drag", explained as singing in the high street.[17] A writer on tramp life in 1886 described it as chiefly the singing of hymns.[17] Green's dictionary follows it into the 20th century, with later use in the United States, where it widened to mean to beg, peddle or scrounge.[17]

Timeline

  • 1851 – to sing in the streets as a beggar.[12] Green's dictionary first quotes it from Hotten (1859).[17]

Meanings

Verb

  1. (slang) To sing in the streets as a beggar.[12][3][17]
  2. (slang) To beg, peddle or scrounge.[17]

Word family

  • griddler

Usage notes

Wright's dialect dictionary also lists a verb griddle, or grittle, to grind corn coarsely or crush beans, in Berkshire, Hampshire and Dorset, and, in Cornwall, one meaning to sift.[15]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d 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)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  5. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  8. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  10. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  11. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  14. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  15. ^ a b c Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  16. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  17. ^ a b c d e f g h Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Griddle.” Etymologically, 5 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/griddle. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

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