"G" Word Origins

From grave (adjective) + -ly.

From Middle English gravere, graver, gravoure, from Old English græfere, grafere (“graver; engraver; sculptor”), equivalent to grave (“to engrave”) + -er. Cognate with Dutch graveur, German Graveur, Danish gravør, Swedish gravör, Icelandic grafari.

From grave + robber.

From grave + stone.

From grave + yard.

By association of the spooky, cold and silent properties of both the night and graveyards.

Borrowed from Latin gravitās ("weight, heaviness") — a doublet of the English word "gravity".

Borrowed from New Latin gravitāt-, past participial stem of gravitō.

Borrowed from New Latin gravitātiō, formed from gravitate + -ion.

From gravitate + -ive.

From gravity + -on, coined by Soviet physicists in 1934 and later reintroduced by Paul Dirac in 1959.

From French gravité or Latin gravitās ("heaviness, seriousness"), from gravis ("heavy, serious"). A doublet of "gravitas".

From Middle English gravey, likely linked to greaves/graves ("sediment from melted fat").

From Old English grǣġ, the West Saxon form; the alternate spelling "grey" comes from the Anglian form. Related to an ancient root meaning "to grow" or "to become green".

From gray + mail: in the threat sense, by analogy with blackmail.

From Old English grasian, "to feed on grass," built from the word grass itself.

From Old French craisse/craisse ("fatness"), ultimately from Latin crassus, "thick" or "fat" — the same root that gives English the word crass.

From grease plus the suffix -er. The youth-culture sense comes from members slicking their hair back with pomade or grease.

From Middle English gresy, formed from grease plus the adjective-forming suffix -y.

From Old English grēat, meaning "big, thick, coarse" — related to modern German gross and Dutch groot.

From Middle English gretnen (“to become great, be pregnant”), equivalent to great + -en.

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

From Middle English gret-herted, equivalent to great + hearted.

From Middle English gretly, formed from great plus the adverb-forming suffix -ly.

From Old English grēatnes, built from great plus the noun-forming suffix -ness.

From Middle English greve, from Old English grǣfe, grǣfa (“bush, bramble, grove, thicket, copse, brush-wood (for burning), fuel”). Cognate with Scots greve, greave (“grove”). Compare also Proto-Germanic *grainiz (“twig”), of unknown origin, whence Old Norse grein (“branch, bough”). Closely related to Old English grāf, grāfa (“grove”). See grove.

From Middle Low German grêve, likely related to German Griebe ("crackling" or "cracklings").

From Latin Graecia ("Greece") plus the adjective suffix -an, reaching English via Old French grecien.

From Latin Graecia, from Ancient Greek Graikos — the Latin name, not the Greeks' own name for their country (Hellas).

A back-formation from the older adjective greedy, first recorded around 1600.

From Old English grǣdig, related to Gothic gredags ("hungry") — the underlying idea is a Proto-Germanic root for hunger.

From greedy + guts.

From Old English Grēcas ("Greeks"), ultimately from Latin Graecus — the name the Romans used, distinct from the Greeks' own name for themselves, Hellenes.

From Greek + town.

As a surname, originally a nickname for someone with a pockmarked face, from Old French greslé ("pitted, scarred").

From Old English grēne, from a Proto-Germanic root related to "grow" — green is, at its linguistic root, "the colour of growing things."

From green + back.

From green + brier.

From green plus the suffix -ery, following the same pattern as words like "bakery" or "shrubbery."

From green plus field, originally referring literally to undeveloped agricultural or grassy land.

From green + fly.

By surface analysis, green + gage. See alternative etymology below, as this is incorrect: the etymology for gage is a back-formation from greengage. alternative etymology The legend goes that Sir William Gage, 2nd Baronet of Hengrave, (c. 1656–1727), had a shipment of plums from France, in which the labels of the reine-claude got lost, by which reason his gardener called it after his master. Horticulturist Peter Collinson reports in his notes edited by L. W. Dillwyn in 1843, page 60: I was on a visit to Sir William Gage, at Hengrave, near Bury; he was then near 70; he told me that he first brought over, from France, the Grosse reine Claude, and introduced it into England, and in compliment to him the Plum was called the Green Gage; this was about the year 1725. Contrary to the common story however here the French name is known to the baronet, and it could consequentially completely be a running joke, in that he exploited a coincidental likeness of his name to a plant name to become part of history. An older term denoting the very same plum cultivar, which ultimately derives from the Near East, via the Sublime Porte under Kanuni Süleyman, is found in Persian گوجه سبز (gowje sabz)

From green (referring to fresh vegetables) plus grocer.

From Middle English grene horn, originally referring to the fresh horn of a recently killed young animal — "green" here means young or fresh, not the colour.

From green plus house — literally, a house for growing green produce.

From green + -ie. Environmentalist sense first attested in Australia in 1973, referring to trade unionists who supported green bans.

A calque of Old Norse Grǿnland ("green land"), from grǿnn ("green") plus land.

Blend of greenback + blackmail.