grass
UK [ɡɹ̠ɑːs] · US [ɡɹ̠æs] noun, verb, proper noun
Forms grasses grassing grassed Grassie
- noun (countable, uncountable) Any plant of the family Poaceae, characterized by leaves that arise from nodes in the stem and leaf bases that wrap around the stem, especially those grown as ground cover rather than for grain.
- noun (countable) Any of the various plants that are not in the family Poaceae that resemble grasses.
- noun (uncountable) A lawn.
- noun (uncountable) The outside world, especially in the phrase "touch grass".
- noun (uncountable, slang) Marijuana.
- noun (countable, UK, slang) An informer; snitch, police informer; one who betrays a group (of criminals, etc) to the authorities. “What just happened must remain secret. Don't be a grass.”
- noun (uncountable, physics) Sharp, closely spaced discontinuities in the trace of a cathode-ray tube, produced by random interference.
- noun (uncountable, slang) Noise on an A-scope or similar type of radar display.
- verb (transitive) To lay out on the grass; to knock down (an opponent etc.).
- verb (transitive or intransitive, slang) To act as a grass or informer, to betray; to report on (criminals etc) to the authorities.
- verb (transitive) To cover with grass or with turf.
- verb (transitive) To feed with grass.
- verb (transitive) To expose, as flax, on the grass for bleaching, etc.
- verb (transitive) To bring to the grass or ground; to land.
- proper noun A group of languages spoken in Papua New Guinea.
- proper noun A surname.
- proper noun A township in Spencer County, Indiana, United States, named after pioneer settler Daniel Grass.
Synonyms
bhang benj boo broccoli bud buddha cannabis cheeba choof daccha dank devil's lettuce djamba doja doobage dope endo gage ganja ganj Gunter Grass Gunter Wilhelm Grass supergrass eatage forage pasture pasturage pot green goddess weed
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English gras, from Old English græs, from Proto-West Germanic *gras, from Proto-Germanic *grasą (“grass”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰreh₁- (“to grow”).
Cognate with Scots gress (“grass”), North Frisian gaars, geers, Gērs, gjars, gjas, gäärs (“grass”), Saterland Frisian Gäärs (“grass”), West Frisian gers (“grass”), Cimbrian gras, grass (“grass”), German and Luxembourgish Gras (“grass, weed”), Dutch gras (“grass, turf, pasture”), Mòcheno and Vilamovian gros (“grass”), West Flemish ges (“grass”), Yiddish גראָז (groz, “grass”), Danish græs (“grass”), Faroese, Icelandic, and Norwegian Nynorsk gras (“grass”), Norwegian Bokmål gras, gress (“grass”), Swedish gräs (“grass”), Gothic 𐌲𐍂𐌰𐍃 (gras, “herb”); also Latin herba (“plant, weed, grass”), Albanian grath (“grass blade, spike”). Related to grow, green.
The "informer" sense is probably a shortening of grasshopper (“police officer, informant”), rhyming slang for copper (“police officer”) or shopper (“informant”); the exact sequence of derivation is unclear.
Webster’s 1913
- noun Popularly: Herbage; the plants which constitute the food of cattle and other beasts; pasture.
- noun An endogenous plant having simple leaves, a stem generally jointed and tubular, the husks or glumes in pairs, and the seed single.
- verb To cover with grass or with turf.
- verb To expose, as flax, on the grass for bleaching, etc.
Etymology [OE. gras, gres, gers, AS, qr, g; akin to OFries. gres, gers, OS., D., G., Icel., & Goth. gras, Dan. gr, Sw. gr, and prob. to Z. grcen, grow. Cf. Graze.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “grass”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details