Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Soft or melted animal fat, especially after rendering.
  • noun A thick oil or viscous substance, especially when used as a lubricant.
  • noun The oily substance present in raw wool; suint.
  • noun Raw wool that has not been cleansed of this oily substance.
  • noun Slang Something, such as money or influence, that facilitates the attainment of an object or a desire.
  • transitive verb To coat, smear, or soil with grease.
  • transitive verb To lubricate with grease.
  • transitive verb To facilitate the progress of.
  • transitive verb Slang To kill.
  • idiom (palm/hand) To bribe.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Animal fat in a soft state; oily or unctuous animal matter of any kind, as tallow, suet, or lard; particularly, the fatty matter of land-animals, as distinguished from the oily matter of marine animals.
  • noun In hunting, the fat of a hart, boar, wolf, fox, badger, hare, rabbit, etc., with reference to the season (called grease-time) when they are fat and fit for killing, and are said to be in grease or (formerly) of grease.
  • noun In farriery, a swelling and inflammation in a horse's legs attended with the secretion of oily matter and cracks in the skin.
  • noun To suffer by one's own presumption or folly; endure without mitigation or relief the evil consequences of one's own acts.
  • To smear or anoint with grease or fat.
  • To bribe; corrupt with payments or gifts. [Obsolete or rare.]
  • To gull; cheat.
  • To cause to run easily, as if in a greased channel.
  • In farriery, to affect with the disease called grease.
  • Did you not grease the sealers of Leadenhall throughly in the fiste, they would never be sealed, but turned away. Greene, Quip for an Upstart Courtier (Harl. Misc., V. 411).

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Animal fat, as tallow or lard, especially when in a soft state; oily or unctuous matter of any kind.
  • noun (Far.) An inflammation of a horse's heels, suspending the ordinary greasy secretion of the part, and producing dryness and scurfiness, followed by cracks, ulceration, and fungous excrescences.
  • noun (Bot.) Same as Grease wood (below).
  • noun (Zoöl.) a pyralid moth (Aglossa pinguinalis) whose larva eats greasy cloth, etc.
  • noun (Bot.) a scraggy, stunted, and somewhat prickly shrub (Sarcobatus vermiculatus) of the Spinach family, very abundant in alkaline valleys from the upper Missouri to California. The name is also applied to other plants of the same family, as several species of Atriplex and Obione.
  • transitive verb To smear, anoint, or daub, with grease or fat; to lubricate.
  • transitive verb To bribe; to corrupt with presents.
  • transitive verb obsolete To cheat or cozen; to overreach.
  • transitive verb (Far.) To affect (a horse) with grease, the disease.
  • transitive verb to corrupt by bribes.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Animal fat in a melted or soft state
  • noun extension Any oily or fatty matter.
  • noun Shorn but not yet cleansed wool
  • noun Inflammation of a horse's heels, also known as scratches or pastern dermatitis.
  • verb transitive To put grease or fat on something, especially in order to lubricate.
  • verb transitive, informal To bribe.
  • verb transitive, slang, aviation To perform a landing extraordinarily smoothly.
  • verb transitive, slang To kill, murder.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the state of being covered with unclean things
  • verb lubricate with grease
  • noun a thick fatty oil (especially one used to lubricate machinery)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English grese, from Anglo-Norman grece, from Vulgar Latin *crassia, from Latin crassus, fat, thick.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Anglo-Norman grece, from Old French graisse, from Latin crassus ("fat, thick").

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Examples

  • Earlier in the transcript Limbaugh twice used the term "grease ball" regarding Corzine's hair.

    The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com John Celock 2012

  • A man who looks like he just finished servicing a car, covered in grease, is sitting on one end of the couch drinking beer.

    A newbie Gabacho in Mexico 2006

  • A man who looks like he just finished servicing a car, covered in grease, is sitting on one end of the couch drinking beer.

    A newbie Gabacho in Mexico 2006

  • I don't know about Indiana but where Bubba's from, "grease" is a good thing.

    Page 2 2005

  • I don't know about Indiana but where Bubba's from, "grease" is a good thing.

    Page 2 2005

  • I don't know about Indiana but where Bubba's from, "grease" is a good thing.

    Page 2 2005

  • I don't know about Indiana but where Bubba's from, "grease" is a good thing.

    Page 2 2005

  • I don't know about Indiana but where Bubba's from, "grease" is a good thing.

    Page 2 2005

  • I don't know about Indiana but where Bubba's from, "grease" is a good thing.

    Page 2 2005

  • I don't know about Indiana but where Bubba's from, "grease" is a good thing.

    Page 2 2005

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