Wiktionary

gridiron

English

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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From Middle English gridirne, gredirne, gredyron, gredeyron, grydern, grydyryne, girdirin, girderen, variants of Middle English gredire, gredyre, itself an alteration of Middle English gridel (“griddle”). The ending was assimilated to iron,[1] as if from grid +‎ iron, whence grid was later derived.

 
A gridiron

Noun

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gridiron (plural gridirons)

  1. An instrument of torture on which people were secured before being burned by fire. [from 13th c.]
    • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 32, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:
      I know, there have been found seely boores, who have rather endure to have their feet broiled upon a Greedyron, their fingers ends crusht and wrung with the lock of a Pistoll, their eyes all bloody to be thrust out of their heads with wringing and wresting of a cord about their foreheads, before they would so much as be ransomed.
  2. An iron rack or grate used for broiling meat and fish over coals. [from 14th c.]
Derived terms
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Translations
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Etymology 2

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From resembling the shape of a gridiron (a square rectilinear grid).

Noun

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gridiron (countable and uncountable, plural gridirons)

  1. Any object resembling the rack or grate. [from 15th c.]
    • 2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 55:
      Just north of Farringdon station, and to the east of Ray Street, there is a wide cutting bounded by another of those brick walls nicely calculated to be just too high for you to see over. So prop your bike against it, and stand on the down-pointing pedal crank. You are looking at the Ray Street Gridiron, a spectacular bridge in a cutting that carries the Metropolitan, the supposed Underground, over the Widened Lines (now Thameslink).
  2. (nautical) An openwork frame on which vessels are placed for examination, cleaning, and repairs.
  3. (theater) A raised framework from which lighting is suspended.
  4. (American football) The field on which American football is played. [from 19th c.]
  5. (uncountable, Australia and New Zealand) American and Canadian football, particularly when used to distinguish from other codes of football.
    • 1995 October 3, Peter O′Shea, Sports: Out on the field, The Advocate, page 54,
      He represented Australia in this year′s rugby tour of England and is as well-known in Australia as any top gridiron player is in the United States.
    • 2001, Langston Hughes, Dolan Hubbard, Jackie Robinson: First Negro in Big League Baseball: 1919—: The Collected Works of Langston Hughes, Volume 12: Works for Children and Young Adults, page 106:
      So Jackie′s name became known far and wide as an exceptional gridiron player.
    • 2009, Deborah Healey, Sport and the Law, reference note, UNSW Press, page 271,
      119 Yasser (1985) cites the famous US example of gridiron player Dick Butkus of the Chicago Bears.
Synonyms
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Derived terms
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Translations
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Verb

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gridiron (third-person singular simple present gridirons, present participle gridironing, simple past and past participle gridironed)

  1. To mark or cover with lines; to crisscross.
    • 1901, Archibald John Little, Mount Omi and Beyond: A Record of Travel on the Thibetan Border‎[2], Cambridge University Press, published 2010, Conclusion, p. 242:
      This basin of Szechuan (literally "Four Streams," but which, reading the character idiographically, I should be inclined to render as "Gridironed by Streams"), […]
    • 1923, Maximilian P.E. Groszmann, A Parent's Manual: Child Problems, Mental and Moral‎[3], New York: Century, page 74:
      Another logical method is that of gridironing the field by a series of straight paths that are parallel to each other.
    • 1924, Herman Melville, chapter 8, in Billy Budd‎[4], London: Constable & Co.:
      When Billy saw the culprit's naked back under the scourge gridironed with red welts, and worse […] Billy was horrified.
    • 1949, Sinclair Lewis, chapter 42, in The God-Seeker, New York: Popular Library, page 227:
      His white back, gridironed with scars, was as soft as a baby's.
    • 2012, Janet Wallach, chapter 8, in The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age‎[5], New York: Anchor Books, published 2013, page 111:
      Railways spanned the continent and gridironed the states.
  2. (New Zealand, historical) To purchase land so that the remaining adjacent sections are smaller than the minimum area purchasable as freehold, thus excluding potential freeholders.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ “Archived copy”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)‎[1], 2020 December 20 (last accessed), archived from the original on 24 February 2022
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Note 2