Chaucer, House of Fame, 1

1224. The spring is near, when green geese are a-breeding. Shak., L. L. L., 1. 1. It strengthens digestion, excludes surfeits, fevers, and physic: which green wines of any kind can't do. Steele , Spectator, No. 264. We enter'd on the boards: and "Now," she cried, "Ye are green wood, see ye warp not." Tennyson, Prince , ii. The term [bricks] is also applied to the moulded clay in its crude and unburned condition, in which state the bricks are said to be green. C. T. Davis, Bricks, etc., p. 64. 3. Immature with respect to age or judgment; raw; unskilled; easily imposed upon. A man must be very green , indeed, to stand this for two Disraeli, Young Duke, iii. 7. seasons. "What's singing?" said Tom.. "Well, you are jolly green," answered his friend. "Why, the last six Saturdays of every half, we sing of course. T. Hughes, Tom Brown at Rugby, i. 6. A sailor has a peculiar cut to his clothes, and a way of wearing them which a green hand can never get. R. H. Dana , Jr. , Before the Mast, p. 2. 4. Due to or manifesting immaturity; proceeding from want of knowledge or judgment. IMG:content-2650.png:[blocks in formation] IMG:content-2651.png:[blocks in formation] But were thy yeares greene , as now bene myne, To other delights they would encline. Spenser, Shep. Cal., February. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death The memory be green. Shak., Hamlet, i. 2. Perhaps good counsel, Applied while his despair is green , may cure him. Shirley, Hyde Park, v. 1. 6. Full of life and vigor; fresh and vigorous; flourishing; undecayed. By diff'rent Management, engage The Man in Years, and Youth of greener Age. Congreve , tr. of Ovid's Art of Love. To whom the monk:... "I trust We are green in Heaven's eyes; but here too much We moulder - as to things without, I mean." Tennyson, Holy Grail. IMG:content-2652.png:[blocks in formation] A green Christmas makes a fat kirkyard. Old proverb. In the pits Which some green Christmas crams with weary bones. Tennyson, Early Sonnets, ix. A green eye, fallow, horse. See the nouns. - Board of Green Cloth. See cloth and green - cloth . - Green bait, fresh bait, not salted. - Green beer. See beer1 . Green bice, a pigment consisting of the hydrated oxid of copper. It is now seldom used, and is very undesirable as a color. Also called green verditer , Bremen green, Erlau green. Green cheese. (a) Cream-cheese, which has to be eaten when fresh; unripe cheese. Children are (or were) sometimes told that "the moon is made of green cheese"; and this statement, or the supposed belief in it, is often referred to as typical of any great absurdity. To make one swallow a gudgeon, or beleeve a lie, and that the moone is made of greene-cheese. Florio , p. 73. He made an instrument to know If the moon shine at full or no; Tell what her d'ameter to an inch is, And prove that she's not made of green cheese. S. Butler, Hudibras, II. iii. 260. (6) Same as sage cheese (which see, under cheesel ). - Green cloth, green table, a gaming-table; the board at which gamblers play with cards and dice: so called because usually covered with a green cloth. The veteran calls up two Brothers of the Green Cloth competent to act as umpires; and three minutes, fraught with mortal danger, are pa ed in deliberately counting the cards as they lie on the cloth, and naming them slowly. J. W. Palmer , The New and the Old, p. 183. His [the merchant's] bales of dirty indigo are his dice, his cards come up every year instead of every ten minutes, and the sea is his green - table , and yet, forsooth, a gallant man, who sits him down before the baize and challenges all comers, is proscribed by your modern moral world! Thackeray , Barry Lyndon, ix. Green crab, Carcinus mœnas. A corresponding species in the United States is C. granulatus . See cut under Car cinus.- Green crop. See crop . - Green earth. (a) A variety of glauconite. (b) Same as terre verte. - Green fish. (a) Fresh or undried fish of any kind before being cured for the market. (b) A codfish salted but not dried. [New Eng.) - Green fog, gland, goods, gram, gra hopper, grease, herring, etc. See the nouns. - Green grosbeak. Same as greenfinch , 1. Green hides. See Green lake, a pigment compounded of Pru ian blue with some yellow color, generally a vegetable lake. Green land, pasture-land. Hall i well . [Prov. Eng.] Green linnet. Same as greenfinch, 1. Green mant, a wild man; a savage; one attired like a savage. See the second extract. A dance of four swans. To them enter five green men, upon which the swans take wing. World in the Moon , an opera (1697). I have mentioned some of the actors formerly concerned in the pyrotechnical shows. distinguished by the appellation of green men;.. men whimsically attired and disguised with droll masks, having large staves or clubs, headed with cases of crackers. These green men attended the pageants, and preceded the principal persons in the proce ion to clear the way.