grouse
pronunciation
How to pronounce grouse in British English:
UK [graʊs]
How to pronounce grouse in American English:
US [ɡraʊs]
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- Noun:
- flesh of any of various grouse of the family Tetraonidae; usually roasted; flesh too dry to broil
- popular game bird having a plump body and feathered legs and feet
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- Verb:
- hunt grouse
- complain
Word Origin
- grouse
- grouse: English has two words grouse, neither of whose ancestries are adequately documented. It has been speculated that grouse the game-bird [16] originated as the plural of a now lost *grue, which may have come from the medieval Latin bird-name grūta, or from Welsh grugiar, a compound of grug ‘heath’ and iar ‘hen’. Grouse ‘complain’ [19] is first recorded in the poetry of Rudyard Kipling. It seems originally to have been pronounced to rhyme with moose, but in the 20th century has come into line phonetically with grouse the bird. It is not known where it came from.
- grouse (n.)
- type of game bird, 1530s, grows (plural, used collectively), of unknown origin, possibly from Latin or Welsh. Originally the moorhen of the British Isles; later the name was extended to similar birds in other places.
- grouse (v.)
- "complain," 1885 (implied in agent noun grouser), British Army slang, of uncertain origin. OED notes "a curious resemblance" to Normandy French dialectal groucer, from Old French groucier, grocier "to murmur, grumble, complain," which is of imitative origin (compare Greek gru "a grunt," gruzein "to grumble;" also see grutch). Related: Groused; grousing. As a noun from 1918, from the verb.
Example
- 1. Importing meat such as grouse can get around america 's fiddly laws on game farming .
- 2. Rarer than rainforest and under threat , these are now maintained mostly thanks to the demand for grouse shooting .
- 3. Anyway , a friend said that she had a friend who would be cooking some grouse at his restaurant , racine .
- 4. We got talking to a grouse-lover and her husband , who said that they went out for grouse on the first day of the season every year .
- 5. Significantly , grouse need to be managed : if moors become over-populated the birds may become diseased and populations can crash .