14 FEBRUARY 1914, Page 16

"TO GROUSE."

[To wan Eamon or ram "Eirrernroa"]

SIR,—The old English word for " to grumble" was "grudge," earlier " grutch." " Let them wander up and down for meat, and grudge if they be not satisfied" (Psalms lix. 18). "To grouse" seems to be a form of this word, which is stated to have come to us from the Old French, and of which there are sundry other variants. According to Skeat, it is ultimately of Teutonic origin ; according to the Oxford English Dictionary, of unknown origin. The latter work quotes a mediaeval- Latin form groussare, to which the " grouse " of present-day slang is a curiously close reversion.—I am, Sir, de,

C. L. D.