▪ I. gridiron, n.
(ˈgrɪdaɪən)
Forms: α. 3–4 gred-, 4 gridire, 5 gredyre, gerdyre. β. 4 gredyrne, gridirne, 5 grederne, -irne, -eyren, gredren, -yn, grydirne, -eyron, -eyorn, 5–6 gredyron, 6 -yern, -iren, gryderne, grede yron, 6–7 greediron(e, grediron, 7 gridyron, 6– gridiron. γ. 6 north. girdiron, -yrne, gerdyron, girde-, gyrd(e-iron.
[Of obscure formation. The earliest form gredire appears in the same text (S. Eng. Leg.) with gredile griddle, but it is not clear whether the change from -ile to -ire is phonetic, or due to popular etymology. The later forms, however, show that the -ire was at an early date identified with southern ME. ire = iren iron (cf. fur-ire fire-iron), the further development being parallel to that of andiron, q.v.]
1. a. A cooking utensil formed of parallel bars of iron or other metal in a frame, usually supported on short legs, and used for broiling flesh or fish over a fire. † Also formerly, a girdle or griddle.
| α 14.. Metr. Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 626/7 Gredyre, craticula. |
| β 13.. E.E. Allit. P. B. 1277 Þe gredirne & þe goblotes garnyst of syluer. 1382 Wyclif Exod. xxvii. 4 Thow shalt make..a brasun gredyrne [1388 gridele, Coverdale gredyron, 1551 gredyern, 1611 grate or networke] in the manere of a nett. c 1450 Two Cookery-bks. 102 Kutte the chyne in ij. or in iij. peces, and roste him on a faire gredryn. 1482 Paston Lett. No. 867 III. 298 A gredeyren of sylver of Parysse towche, not gylt. 1485 Naval Acc. Hen. VII (1896) 51 Ketle hokes ij., Grydirnes j., fflesh hokes j. 1544 T. Phaer Regim. Life (1553) D iv b, Fyshe rosted vpon the gridiron. 1561 Hollybush Hom. Apoth. 6 Take the braynes of a hogge, rost the same vpon a grede yron. 1647 R. Stapylton Juvenal 211 Broil'd rashers, that on wide gridirons lay. 1749 Fielding Tom Jones x. iv, The said Chicken was then at Roost.., and required the several Ceremonies of catching, killing, and picking, before it was brought to the Grid-iron. c 1850 Arab. Nts. (Rtldg.) 621 Our gridiron is only fit to broil small fish. |
| γ 1495 Nav. Acc. Hen. VII (1896) 260 Brasyn pottes brokyn..Gyrdeyrons Brokyn. 1528 Test. Ebor. (Surtees) V. 255 A girdyrne, xij d. 1557 Richmond. Wills (Surtees) 100 One old brandrethe, one gerdyron, one pare of tongs. 1599 Acc. Bk. in Antiquary XXXII. 243 A girde Iron. |
b. A similar structure employed as an instrument of torture by fire.
As in the case of
griddle, this is the connexion in which the word first appears in English.
| α c 1290 S. Eng. Leg. I. 344/154 Strong fuyr he lieth maken and gret, and a gredire þar-on sette. c 1305 St. Cristopher 202 in E.E.P. (1862) 65 Þe king het þat me scholde anon vpe a gridire him do And roste him wiþ fur & pich. 1393 Langl. P. Pl. C. iii. 130 Laurens þe leuite lyggynge on þe gredire, Loked vp to oure lorde. 14.. S. Eng. Leg. (MS. Bodl. 779) in Archiv Stud. neu. Spr. LXXXII. 325/108 Vppon a gerdyre he let here to rosty. |
| β 1483 Caxton Gold. Leg. 248/1 The mynystres..leyd hym stratched oute uppon a gredyron of yron. 1555 Eden Decades 39 A certeyne frame of woodde much lyke vnto a hurdle or grediren. 1613 Purchas Pilgrimage ix. xv. (1614) 913 The Nobles and commanders, they broiled on gridirons. 1631 R. Byfield Doctr. Sabb. 51 The wheele, greediron, racke and faggot. 1649 Jer. Taylor Gt. Exemp. iii. xv. 92 S. Laurence accounted the coals of his Gridiron but as a Julip. 1839–40 W. Irving Wolfert's R. (1855) 1 The gridiron of the blessed St. Lawrence. 1869 Lecky Europ. Mor. II. xi. 235 The devil was represented bound by red-hot chains on a burning gridiron. |
2. fig. and in phrases.
† the gridiron grumbles at the frying-pan:
cf. ‘the pot calls the kettle black.’
on the gridiron: in a state of torment, persecution, or great uneasiness (
cf. F.
être sur le gril); so
to lay (a person) on the gridiron.
| 1590 Greene Neuer too late (1600) 114, I was so scorched on the grediron of affection, that I had no rest. 1660 Bp. Taylor Duct. Dubit. i. i. (1676) 15 He runs to weakness for excuse, and to sin for a comfort..and changes from side to side upon his grid-iron till the flesh drop from the bones on every side. 1672 R. Wild Poet. Licen. 27 The Calf at Bethel fears the Calf at Dan; The Gridiron grumbles at the Frying-pan. a 1734 North Exam. iii. vii. §30 (1740) 525 It was past Three before the Chief Justice heard that his Name was upon the Gridiron at Westminster. 1834 Macaulay in Trevelyan Life & Lett. (1878) I. 377 While London is a perfect gridiron, here am I, at 13° North from the equator, by a blazing wood fire, with my windows closed. 1859 W. Collins Q. of Hearts (1875) 11 When destiny has..heated his gridiron for him, he has nothing left to do..but to get up and sit on it. 1871 Member for Paris II. 9 He proceeded to do what is called in journalistic phrase ‘laying a man on the gridiron’, which means that he..served him up every day to the readers of the Pavois, skewered through and through with an epigram. |
3. a. Applied to objects resembling or likened to a gridiron;
† a grated weir or dam (
obs.); a grating or grille; a network of pipes, lines, etc.; the United States flag, the stars and stripes.
| 1406–7 Winchester College Acc. Roll, In stip. j carpentarii facientis j gredyre ad introitum aquæ de Lurteborne. 1812 Niles' Reg. 12 Sept. 31/2 The masts from which they flew, went over the side, while Hull's four ‘gridirons’ floated in the air triumphant. 1842–3 Grove Corr. Phys. Forces 58 Between this glass and the plate is a gridiron of silver wire. 1854 Ronalds & Richardson Chem. Technol. (ed. 2) I. 378 To this pipe are attached a number of arms formed of inch pipe, the whole forming a sort of gridiron. 1863 M. E. Braddon Eleanor's Vict. (1878) I. i. 8 My father wore a silver gridiron in his button hole. 1866 E. A. Pollard Southern Hist. War II. 103 ‘It was,’ says a Charleston paper, ‘the identical {oqq}gridiron{cqq} carried from Fort Sumter in 1861.’ 1869 Blackmore Lorna D. ii, He answered, in a whisper, through the gridiron of the gate. 1871 Schele de Vere Americanisms (1872) 258 Sailors laugh at it good-naturedly, and seeing it [sc. the Stars and Stripes] hoisted, say: ‘There goes the gridiron.’ 1892 Harper's Mag. Feb. 435/1 Chicago is criss-crossed by a gridiron of railway tracks. 1893 J. A. Barry S. Brown's Bunyip etc. 29 Run the gridiron half-mast, Mr. Stokes. 1893 Farmer Slang, Gridiron,..the bars on a cell window. |
b. Naut. A heavy framework of beams in parallel open order (suggesting a gridiron) used to support a ship in dock. (So F.
gril.)
| 1846 A. Young Naut. Dict., Gridiron, a frame formed of cross beams of wood, for laying a vessel upon in order to inspect or repair her at low water. 1863 Q. Rev. CXIV. 309 They raise a gridiron which is suspended between them at such a depth in the water as may be requisite to receive the vessel. 1896 Daily News 21 Dec. 2/1 A first-class gridiron, capable of taking vessels up to 300 feet long. |
c. Theatr. A structure of planks erected above the stage and supporting the mechanism for the manipulation of drop-scenes, etc. (So F.
gril.)
| 1886 H. S. Jennings Stage Gossip 69 The ‘gridiron’ is the name for a number of planks running at a great height above the stage from R. to L. 1887 Standard 13 Sept. 6/4 Did the magistrates inspect what is known as the ‘gridiron’—the place immediately over the stage? |
d. Archit. = grid 6 d. Usu.
attrib.| 1883 Ld. R. Gower My Reminisc. II. xxvii. 204 The formal and gridiron-like plan of the streets of this city. 1910 Catal. Cities Exhib. in P. Geddes Cities in Evolution (ed. 2) (1949) 167 The cities of the United States, with their monotonous gridiron-plans. 1938 Oxoniensia III. 85 Anything approaching a spider's web at the nucleus of an English town appears to be extremely rare, and apart from a few towns where the Roman street-plan influenced later development a proper gridiron system is uncommon in England. 1961 L. Mumford City in History xiv. 424 In the gridiron plan, as applied in the commercial city, no section or precinct was suitably planned for its specific function. Ibid. 425 The extension of the speculative gridiron and the public transportation system were the two main activities that gave dominance to capitalist forms in the growing cities of the nineteenth century. 1969 Geography LIV. 200 The grid-iron town plan of Ashburton. |
e. = grid 10. Also
attrib.| 1896 Daily News 10 Dec. 3/4 The ground here is marked out by white lines..thus giving it the appearance of a gigantic gridiron—which, indeed, is the technical name applied to an American football field. 1900 Dialect Notes II. 39 Gridiron, foot-ball field. 1937 L. C. Douglas Forgive us our Trespasses vii. 126 He was gleefully welcomed by young Assistant Coach Roberts and the awkward assembly of prospective gridiron heroes. 1960 T. McLean Kings of Rugby 61 American, or gridiron, football. 1968 C. Drummond Death & Leaping Ladies i. 11 You can't just walk into a team like you can, say, in gridiron or soccer. |
4. Short for
gridiron pendulum.
| 1793 Sir G. Shuckburgh in Phil. Trans. LXXXIII. 88 The pendulum..is a compound gridiron composed of five rods. |
5. Short for
gridiron manœuvre, etc.: A naval manœuvre in which the paths taken by the vessels suggest the form of a gridiron.
| 1893 Daily News 26 June 6/1 In executing the ‘gridiron’ movement the vessels would at times be very close to each other. 1894 Times 30 July 8/1 The Admiral felt justified in twice putting it [the fleet] through the much-discussed evolution known as the ‘gridiron’. |
6. attrib. and
Comb.:
gridiron-floor = sense 3 c;
gridiron pendulum, a compensation pendulum composed of parallel rods of different metals;
gridiron valve, a sliding valve in which the cover and seat are both composed of parallel bars with spaces between them.
| 1881 L. Wagner Pantomimes 57 From the flies a ladder communicates with the *gridiron-floor, at the very roof of the stage, frequently at a height of sixty or seventy feet above the footlights. |
| 1752 Ellicott in Phil. Trans. XLVII. 492–3 Your pendulum takes off the effect of heat and cold as well as either the *gridiron pendulum (as it is commonly called) or the quicksilver pendulum. 1854 J. Scoffern in Orr's Circ. Sci., Chem. 115 Another means of avoiding this source of error is the gridiron pendulum..—an invention of Harrison. 1867–77 G. F. Chambers Astron. viii. 771 Gridiron compensation pendulum. |
| 1875 Knight Dict. Mech., *Gridiron valve. |
▪ II. ˈgridiron, v. [f. gridiron n.] trans. To mark with parallel lines or a pattern suggesting the form of a gridiron; said
esp. of railways with reference to their appearance on a map. Also
fig.| 1832 Reg. Deb. Congress 4 Apr. 2390 With this revenue we could gridiron our states with railroads. 1857 E. M. Whitty Friends Bohemia II. 34 Newland has been a blessing to the country..and gridironed the country with railways. 1867 M. E. Braddon Birds of Prey v. ii. (1868) 246 A breakneck gallop across dreary fields gridironed with dykes and stone walls. 1887 J. J. Hissey Holiday on Road i. 17 Railways have gridironed the land all over. 1901 Daily Chron. 5 Apr. 5/2 He won the right to gridiron its hills with an electric system. 1914 Chambers's Jrnl. June 415/2 The Park is gridironed with its own railway system. 1932 R. Kipling Limits & Renewals 110 An open square, near by, eased the pressure before long. Here the Patrol broke into fours, and gridironed it, saluting the images of the Gods at each corner and in the centre. |
Hence
ˈgridironing vbl. n.,
N.Z. (see
quot. 1910);
ˈgridironer N.Z., one who practises gridironing.
| 1898 Morris Austral Eng. 176/1 Gridironing, a term used in the province of Canterbury, New Zealand. A man purchased land in the shape of a gridiron, knowing that nobody would take the intermediate strips, which later he could purchase at his leisure. 1910 Le Rossignol & Stewart State Socialism in N.Z. iii. 37 ‘Gridironing’ consisted in buying a series of 20-acre sections so surveyed as to leave 19 acres unbought between each two sections bought; and as no one could buy less than 20 acres without going to auction, the alternating 19-acre sections were left to be occupied by the runholder. 1941 Baker N.Z. Slang iii. 26 Land was purchased in strips,..so that the intervening land was rendered useless to another prospective settler and might be bought at the gridironer's leisure. |