English
grass
see also: Grass
Etymology

From Middle English gras, from Old English græs, from Proto-Germanic *grasą, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰreh₁-.

Cognate with Scots girs, gers, gress ("grass"), Northern Frisian gäärs, geers ("grass"), Saterland Frisian Gäärs, Western Frisian gers, Low German Gras, Dutch gras, German Gras, Danish græs, Swedish gräs, Norwegian Bokmål gress, Faroese -, Icelandic - and Norwegian Nynorsk gras, Latin herba, Albanian grath. 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.

Pronunciation
  • enPR: gräs, IPA: /ɡɹɑːs/
    • (RP) IPA: [ɡɹ̠ɑːs]
    • (Australia, New Zealand) IPA: [ɡɹ̠äːs], [ɡɹ̠ɐːs]
  • enPR: grăs, IPA: /ɡɹæs/
    • (America, Canada) IPA: [ɡɹ̠æs], [ɡɹ̠ɛəs], [ɡɹ̠eəs]
    • (Northern England, Ireland) IPA: [ɡɹ̠as], [ɡɹ̠äs]
    • (New York, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Baltimore) IPA: [ɡɹ̠ɛəs],
Noun

grass

  1. (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.
    Synonyms: Thesaurus:grass
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC ↗, Psalms 90:3–6 ↗:
      Thou turnest man to destruction: and sayest, Returne yee children of men. / For a thousand yeeres in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past: and as a watch in the night. / Thou carriest them away as with a flood, they are as a sleepe: in the morning they are like grasse which groweth vp. / In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth vp: in the euening it is cut downe, and withereth.
    • a. 1823 (date written), Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Hymn of Pan”, in Mary W[ollstonecraft] Shelley, editor, Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley, London: […] [C. H. Reynell] for John and Henry L[eigh] Hunt, […], published 1824, →OCLC ↗, page 169 ↗:
      The cicale above in the lime, / And the lizards below in the grass, / Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was, / Listening to my sweet pipings.
    • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC ↗:
      'Twas early June, the new grass was flourishing everywheres, the posies in the yard—peonies and such—in full bloom, the sun was shining, and the water of the bay was blue, with light green streaks where the shoal showed.
  2. (countable) Various plants not in family Poaceae that resemble grasses.
  3. (uncountable) A lawn.
  4. (uncountable, slang) Marijuana.
    Synonyms: Thesaurus:marijuana
  5. (countable, Britain, slang) An informer, police informer; one who betrays a group (of criminals, etc) to the authorities.
    Synonyms: Thesaurus:informant
    What just happened must remain secret. Don't be a grass.
  6. (uncountable, physics) Sharp, closely spaced discontinuities in the trace of a cathode-ray tube, produced by random interference.
  7. (uncountable, slang) Noise on an A-scope or similar type of radar display.
    • 1960, Radarman 3 & 2, volume 1, United States. Bureau of Naval Personnel, page 49:
      The problem in radar detection is to have a signal to noise ratio that will allow the echo to be seen through the grass on the radar screen. The use of a long pulse allows a greater average signal strength to be returned in the target echoes.
    • 1963, Analysis of Weapons, page 61:
      Some of the scattered waves can be picked up by the receiver and may show up as "grass" on the radar presentation. Weather radars make use of this phenomenon to chart the progress of storms.
  8. The season of fresh grass; spring or summer.
    Synonyms: breakup, spring, springtime
  9. (obsolete, figurative) That which is transitory.
    Synonyms: ephemera
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC ↗, Isaiah 40:7 ↗:
      The grasse withereth, the flowre fadeth; because the spirit of the Lord bloweth vpon it: surely the people is grasse.
  10. (countable, folk etymology) Asparagus; "sparrowgrass".
  11. (mining) The surface of a mine.
Translations Translations Translations Translations Verb

grass (grasses, present participle grassing; simple past and past participle grassed)

  1. (transitive) To lay out on the grass; to knock down (an opponent etc.).
    Synonyms: flatten, floor, lay low, lay out, knock down, knock out, knock over, strike down
    • 1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC ↗:
      The Chicken himself attributed this punishment to his having had the misfortune to get into Chancery early in the proceedings, when he was severely fibbed by the Larkey one, and heavily grassed.
  2. (transitive or intransitive, slang) To act as a grass or informer, to betray; to report on (criminals etc) to the authorities.
    Synonyms: Thesaurus:rat out
    • 1962 [1959], William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, New York: Grove Press, page 2 ↗:
      "Grassed on me he did," I said morosely. (Note: Grass is English thief slang for inform.)[sic]
  3. (transitive) To cover with grass or with turf.
  4. (transitive) To feed with grass.
  5. (transitive) To expose, as flax, on the grass for bleaching, etc.
  6. (transitive) To bring to the grass or ground; to land.
    • 1903, John Buchan, The African Colony:
      Let him hook and land a tigerfish of 20 lb., at the imminent risk of capsizing and joining the company of the engaging crocodiles, or, when he has grassed the fish, of having a finger bitten off by his iron teeth […]
Translations Translations
Grass
Proper noun
  1. A group of languages spoken in Papua New Guinea.
Proper noun
  1. Surname.


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