groats (grots)

pl. [ Verrius report eth, that the people of Rome for three hundred years together used no other food than the groats made of common wheat. Holland, tr. of Pliny, xviii. 7. There were oat and barley meal, or grotts , kail, leeks, and onions, oatcakes, and but little wheat bread. Quarterly Rev. grobian (grō'bi-an), n . [ grobian (> Dan. Sw. grobian ), grob , coarse, clumsy, rude, gruff, = D. grof , > E. gruff1 , q. v.] A coarse, ill-bred fellow; a rude lout; a boor. [Not in colloquial use.] Clownish, rude and horrid, Grobians and sluts. Burton, Anat. of Mel., p. 530. He who is a Grobian in his own company will sooner or later become a Grobian in that of his friends. Kingsley, Westward Ho! ii. self. Such pa ages are almost enough to convert the most hardened grobian , or even the robustious Philistine him The Century , XXIII. 951. grobianism (grō'bi-an-izm), n. Slovenly behavior. Bailey , 1731. grocet, n. Same as gro . grocer wholesale dealer (a grocer in the mod. sense, 2, being then called a spicer ), = D. gro ier; cf. G. gro irer = Dan. gro erer = Sw. gro ör, OF. gros, etc.), great, gro : see gro , and cf. engro er. Cf. equiv. ML. magnarius, a wholesale dealer, The great galees of Venice and Florence Be well laden with things of complacence, All spicery and of gro ers ware. Hakluyt's Voyages, I. 193. The Grocers merchants who, according to Herbert, received their name from the engro ing (buying up wholesale) "all manner of merchandize vendible" - were particularly powerful. English Gilds (E. E. T. S.), Int., p. cxii. 2. A trader who deals in general supplios for the table and for household use. See grocery , 3. - Grocers' itch, a variety of eczema produced in grocers and persons working in sugar-refineries by the irritation of sugar.