grif
/ɡɹɪf/
grif is the alternative form of griffe.
Meaning of griffe
Noun (1)
griffe (plural griffes)
- A claw-like ornament at the base of a column.
- The primary use of this is to give the column a broader base and to diminish the amount of the cutting away of the solid stone. The griffe, however, is often used for elaborate ornamentation, being carved into vegetable or even animal form.2013, Russell Sturgis, Francis A. Davis, Sturgis' Illustrated Dictionary of Architecture and Building: An Unabridged Reprint of the 1901-2 Edition, Courier Corporation, →ISBN, page 323
Noun (2)
griffe (plural griffes)
- A person of mixed (black and white) race, especially the offspring of a mulatto (person of mixed black and white ancestry) and a person of fully black ancestry.
- Saint-Domingue's complex system of racial classification allowed for no fewer than eight “mixed” racial parental combinations that could produce a griffe, as infamously calculated by Moreau.2017, Terry Rey, The Priest and the Prophetess: Abbé Ouvière, Romaine Rivière, and the Revolutionary Atlantic World, Oxford University Press, →ISBN
Forms of grif
| plural | grifs |
|---|
Words that rhyme with grif
Questions about grif
- What is grif the alternative form of?
- Grif is the alternative form of griffe.
- How do you pronounce grif?
- Grif is pronounced /ɡɹɪf/.
Words near grif in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: grif (page history and authors); griffe (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:
Cite this entry: “grif.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/grif. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.