1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, Grey-beard, s.v. Dutch earthen jugs, used for smuggling gin on the coasts of Essex and Suffolk, are at this time called grey-BEARDS.
1814. Scott, Waverley, ch. lxiv. There's plenty of brandy in the grey-beard.
1886. The State, 20 May, p. 217. A whisky or brandy which is held in merited respect for very superior potency is entitled [in America] 'reverent,' from the same kind of fancy which led the Scotch to call a whisky jar a grey-beard.
Gray-cloak, subs. (common).—An
alderman above the chair.
[Because his proper robe is a
cloak furred with grey amis.]
Gray-goose, subs. (Scots').—A
big field stone on the surface of
the ground.
1816. Scott, Black Dwarf, ch. iv. Biggin a dry-stane dyke, I think, wi' the grey-geese as they ca' thae great loose stones.
Grayhound, subs. (general).—1. A
fast Atlantic liner; one especially
built for speed. Also ocean
GRAYHOUND.
1887. Scientific American, vol. LVI., 2. They [ships] are built in the strongest possible manner, and are so swift of foot, as to have already become formidable rivals to the English grey hound.
2. (Cambridge University).—An obsolete name for a member of Clare College; a clarian.
1889. Whibley, Cap and Gown, xxviii. The members of Clare . . . were called grayhounds.
Gray-mare, subs. (common).—A
wife; specifically one who wears
the breeches (q.v.). [From
the proverb, 'The gray mare is
the better horse' = the wife is
master: a tradition, perhaps, from
the time when priests were forbidden
to carry arms or ride on a
male horse: Non enim licuerate
pontificem sacrorum vel arma
ferre, vel praeter quam in
equuâ equitare.—Beda, Hist.
Eccl. ii., 13. Fr., mariage
d'epervier = a hawk's marriage: the
female hawk being the larger and
stronger bird. Lord Macaulay's
explanation (quot. 1849) is the
merest guess-work.]
1546. John Haywood, Proverbs [Sharman's reprint, 1874]. She is (quoth he) bent to force you perforce, To know that the grey mare is the better horse.
1550. A Treatyse, Shewing and Declaring the Pryde and Abuse of Women Now a Dayes (in Hazlitt's Early Popular Poetry, iv., 237). What! shall the graye mayre be the better horse, And be wanton styll at home?
1605. Camden, Remains Concerning Britain [ed. 1870, p. 332]. In list of proverbs. (Is said to be the earliest in English.)
1670. Ray, Proverbs, s.v.
1698-1750. Ward, London Spy, part II., p. 40. Another as dull as if the grey mare was the better Horse; and deny'd him Enterance for keeping late Hours.
1705-1707. Ward, Hudibras Redivivus, vol. II., pt. iv., p. 5. There's no resisting Female Force, Grey mare will prove the better Horse.
1717. Prior, Epilogue to Mrs. Manley's Lucius. As long as we have eyes, or hands, or breath, We'll look, or write, or talk you all to death. Yield, or she-Pegasus will gain her course, And the grey mare will prove the better horse.
1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., p. 240. For the grey mare has proved the better horse.
1738. Swift, Polite Convers., dial. 3. I wish she were married; but I doubt the gray mare would prove the better horse.
1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, ch. xix. By the hints they dropped, I learned the gray mare was the better horse—that she was a matron of a high spirit.
