The Thirty-Nine Steps (33 page)

giddy
ADJ
giddy means dizzy
and I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly; you make one quite
giddy. (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll)

gig
NOUN
a light two-wheeled carriage
when a gig drove up to the garden gate: out of which there jumped a fat gentleman
(
Oliver Twist
by Charles Dickens)

gladsome
ADJ
gladsome is an old word meaning glad or happy
Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks
(
A Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens)

glen
NOUN
a glen is a small valley; the word is used commonly in Scotland
a beck which follows the bend of the glen
(
Wuthering Heights
by Emily Brontë)

gravelled
VERB
gravelled is an old term which means to baffle or defeat someone
Gravelled the pastors of the German Church
(
Doctor Faustus 1.1
by Christopher Marlowe)

grinder
NOUN
a grinder was a private tutor
but that when he had had the happiness of marrying Mrs Pocket very early in his life,
he had impaired his prospects and taken up the calling of a Grinder
(
Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens)

gruel
NOUN
gruel is a thin, watery cornmeal or oatmeal soup
and the little saucepan of gruel
(
Scrooge had a cold in his head) upon the hob
. (
A Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens)

guinea, half a
NOUN
a half guinea was ten shillings and sixpence
but lay out half a guinea at Ford’s
(
Emma
by Jane Austen)

gull
VERB
gull is an old term which means to fool or deceive someone
Hush, I’ll gull him supernaturally
(
Doctor Faustus 3.4
by Christopher Marlowe)

gunnel
NOUN
the gunnel, or gunwhale, is the upper edge of a boat’s side
But he put his foot on the gunnel and rocked her
(
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain)

gunwale
NOUN
the side of a ship
He dipped his hand in the water over the boat’s gunwale
(
Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens)

Gytrash
NOUN
a Gytrash is an omen of misfortune to the superstitious, usually taking the form
of a hound
I remembered certain of Bessie’s tales, wherein figured a
North-of-England spirit, called a ‘Gytrash’
(
Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Brontë)