gris

Searchable Lemmata: gris (AF), grisus (L), gris (ME), gris (MdE).

Alternate Forms: crisso, gray, greciuscriseam, greis, gres, grey, greyis, gri, grice, grise, grisea, grisei, griseis, griseo, griseos, griseus, grisi, grisia, grisiis, grisius, grisonis, grisonum, gristo, grys.

1a(n.) Raw Material; colour grey (as noun and as adjective). Cf. grey.(ante 1210 still in current use) 1b(adj.) Textile; natural or undyed (of cloth), of a greyish colour. In this sense or in the following, also appears in surnames (Gaufridus Grisatunica [DMLBS DICETO Abbr. Norm. 156]). M. L. Ryder notes that a substantive form (L grisia) referred to the name of a wool (meaning grey and brown) produced at Fountains Abbey in the mid-fifteenth century [Ryder, M L (1981), p. 24].(circa 1200 still in current use) 2a(n.) Raw Material; grey fur, the blue-grey back of the red squirrel taken in winter (also used to describe the squirrel itself); an expensive fur, often used for linings. 'Gris' was often used in opposition to 'pured' (pured, puratus, etc.) fur and used to refer to the untrimmed fur of the squirrel, used for clothing, soft furnishings, lining, etc.; either as a mass noun or a count noun. It could also be used attributively as an adjective, meaning 'untrimmed', describing various sorts of fur (foins, for example). Elspeth Veale distinguishes different varieties in the European fur trade: gris fyn (or optimum gris), amys grey and christigrey (which may 'have been applied to early or late winter skins, and was possibly equivalent to browngrey'), Veale, E (1966), 228. Also cf. grey, greywork.(ante 1140 - post 1480 ?) 2b(adj.) Raw Material; by extension, of gris, of grey-coloured squirrel fur (cf. the noun above).(ante 1140 - circa 1230) 3(n.) Raw Material; frequently used to describe a member of the Cistercian order from their undyed garments; a Cistercian ('grey') monk. Used to describe a Franciscan friar in a single attestation (DMLBS Mon. Francisc. I 595).(1154 - circa 1382)