Greaves
name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The unmeltable residue left after animal fat has been rendered. plural, plural-only
"Rendering is done by boiling the animal carcasses to separate the fat from the meat. At high temperatures, the fat floats as a creamy white substance called tallow, while the heavier protein sinks to the bottom, producing greaves, which can be fed to animals. Tallow is used to make candle wax or is mixed with ash and heated again to form soap."
- 2 plural of greave form-of, plural
- 3 the residue that remains after animal fat has been rendered wordnet
- 1 A surname from Old English.
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"The crew and Daphnis fell into the sea and came to the surface again but they had not equal chances for preservation. The pirates had their swords at their sides and their bucklers slung behind them, while their greaves reached to the middle of their legs; whereas Daphnis, as usual when he tended his herd in the plains, had not even his sandals on, and, moreover, as the season was very warm, he was scarcely dressed."
Etymology
From Low German (compare German Low German Greev, Greve (“greaves”)), from Middle Low German grêve, from Old Saxon *griovo, from Proto-West Germanic *greubō (“roughage, brushwood, kindling”), perhaps related to *grubaz (“rough, coarse”), the root of German Griebe (“greaves, crackling”). Possibly related to gruff. Also compare Old High German grob (“coarse”) (modern German grob).
Topographic surname for someone who lived near a brushwood or thicket, from Old English grǣfe (“brushwood, thicket”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.