grif

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡɹɪf/
• Rhymes: -ɪf

Noun

grif (plural grifs)

1. (dated or historical) Alternative form of griffe (“person of mixed (black and white) race”).
   • 1807, François Raymond J. de Pons, Travels in South America, during ... 1801, 1802, 1803, and 1804. Transl, page 249:

     His colour is nearly that of a grif or cobb, the produce of a mulatto and negro.

   • 1992, Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth-Century, LSU Press, →ISBN, page 263:

     […] in the inventory of the estate of Jean Decuir in 1771, she was listed as one of 3 mulatto children of a grif mother.

   • 2012, Andrew Sluyter, Black Ranching Frontiers: African Cattle Herders of the Atlantic World, 1500-1900, Yale University Press, →ISBN, page 82:

     Lisette also had two older daughters: Magdaleine, born in 1749; and Francoise, born in 1753 and variously identified as a grif or mulatto.

   • 2017, Terry Rey, The Priest and the Prophetess: Abbé Ouvière, Romaine Rivière, and the Revolutionary Atlantic World, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 50:

     [This] author of one of the most detailed contemporary discussions about the prophetess and the Trou Coffy insurgency, was the first on record to refer to the prophetess as a “grif,” meaning someone born to one black and one mulatto parent.

Anagrams

• frig

Catalan

Noun

grif m (plural grifs)

1. alternative form of griu

Danish

Etymology

From Old Danish gryph, from Latin grȳphus, from Ancient Greek γρύψ (grúps). Doublet of grib and kerub.

Compare Old Norse gripr, Old Swedish griper, Swedish grip.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈɡʁif]

Noun

grif c (singular definite griffen, plural indefinite griffer)

1. (mythology) a griffin

Inflection

Declension of grif

gender	singular		plural
	indefinite	definite	indefinite	definite
nominative	grif	griffen	griffer	grifferne
genitive	grifs	griffens	griffers	griffernes

Alternative forms

• griff

Descendants

• ⇒ Norwegian Bokmål: griff

References

• “grif” in Den Danske Ordbog

Dutch

Etymology

Probably by contraction from an older form *gerif, in that form attested in East Frisian and in Gronings, cognate with Dutch gerief (“amenity”).

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪf
• IPA^(key): /ɣrɪf/

Adjective

grif (comparative griffer, superlative grifst)

1. prompt, without hesitation, ready
2. eager

Declension

Declension of grif
uninflected	grif
inflected	griffe
comparative	griffer
		positive	comparative	superlative
predicative/adverbial		grif	griffer	het grifst het grifste
indefinite	m./f. sing.	griffe	griffere	grifste
	n. sing.	grif	griffer	grifste
	plural	griffe	griffere	grifste
definite		griffe	griffere	grifste
partitive		grifs	griffers	—

Synonyms

• (eager): gretig

Middle High German

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (before 13^th CE) /ˈɡriːf/

Etymology 1

Inherited from Old High German grifo, from Latin grȳps, from Ancient Greek γρύψ (grúps).

Alternative forms

• grīfe

Noun

grīf m

1. (mythology) griffin, gryphon

   Alternative form: grīfe

Descendants

• > German: Greif (inherited)
• → Old Polish: gryf
  • > Polish: gryf (inherited)
    • → Ukrainian: гриф (hryf)

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb

grīf

1. second-person singular present imperative of grīfen

Old High German

Verb

grīf

1. second-person singular present imperative of grīfan

Serbo-Croatian

Etymology

Borrowed from German Griff.

Noun

grif m inan (Cyrillic spelling гриф)

1. (Kajkavian) grip
2. (Kajkavian) handle

Further reading

• “grif”, in Rječnik hrvatskoga kajkavskoga književnog jezika [Dictionary of the Croatian Kajkavian literary language] (in Serbo-Croatian), https://kajkavski.hr, 1984–2026

West Frisian

Etymology

Cognate with Dutch grif.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡrɪf/

Adverb

grif

1. certainly, without a doubt
2. probably
3. eagerly

Further reading

“grif”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011