Word.ws English Dictionary

greaves

/ɡɹivz/

greaves noun: the unmeltable residue left after animal fat has been rendered. Also the plural of greave.

Noun

greaves pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) The unmeltable residue left after animal fat has been rendered.
    • 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...2005, Carmen Ferreiro, Mad Cow Disease, Infobase Publishing, →ISBN, page 13

Proper noun capitalized: Greaves

Greaves (plural Greaveses)

  1. A surname from Old English.

Also used as

greaves is also the plural of greave.

Forms of greaves

pluralGreaveses

Origin of greaves

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”).

Words that rhyme with greaves

5 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about greaves

What does greaves mean?
Greaves means the unmeltable residue left after animal fat has been rendered.
What part of speech is greaves?
Greaves can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce greaves?
Greaves is pronounced /ɡɹivz/.

Words near greaves in the dictionary

  1. greatuncles
  2. Greatworth
  3. Greatworth and Halse
  4. greave
  5. greaved
  6. greaves
  7. Greaveses
  8. greaving
  9. greaze
  10. greazed
  11. greazes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: greaves (page history and authors); Greaves (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-greaves.wav.

Cite this entry: “greaves.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/greaves. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.