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greave

UK/ɡɹiːv/US/ɡɹiːv/
nounC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechneutral

Other forms: greaves

A greave is armour worn to protect the shin. A pair of greaves.

The shin has no muscle over the bone, which is why it needed protecting first. Greaves are among the oldest pieces of armour and appear in Homer.

Unknown · CC BY-SA 3.0

Definitions of greave

  1. 1noungreaveArmour worn to protect the shin.C2

    “One greave in the museum still had the strap attached.”

greave is armour.

Where it comes from

Middle English greve comes from Old French greve, the shin.

  1. Old English

    grǣfe

  2. Middle English

    greve

  3. English, today

    greave

Built from

  • græfe · Old English — bush, bramble, grove, thicket, copse, brush-wood (for burning), fuel

From Middle English greve, from Old English grǣfe, græfe (“bush, bramble, grove, thicket, copse, brush-wood (for burning), fuel”). Cognate with Scots greve, greave (“grove”). Compare also Proto-Germanic grainiz (“twig”), of unknown origin, whence Old Norse grein (“branch, bough”). Closely related to Old English grāf, grāfa (“grove”). See grove.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

greave in the wild

  • A greave (from the Old French greve "shin, shin armor") or jambeau is a piece of armor that protects the leg.

    Greave

  • An ochrea (Latin ocrea, greave or protective legging), also spelled ocrea, is a plant structure formed of stipules fused into a sheath surrounding the stem.

    Ochrea

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.