grama

Etymology

Borrowed from Spanish grama (“grass”), from Latin grāmina, plural of grāmen (“grass”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɹɑːmə/, /ˈɡɹamə/

Noun

grama (countable and uncountable, plural gramas)

1. Various species of grass in the genus Bouteloua, including Bouteloua gracilis
   • 1864: Fitz-Hugh Ludlow in The Atlantic

     To understand the exquisite beauty of simple green grass, you must travel through eight hundred miles of sage-brush and grama...the latter, a stunted species of herbage, growing in ash tinted spirals, only two inches from the ground, and giving the Plains an appearance of being matted with curled hair or gray corkscrews. Its other name is “buffalo grass”; and in spite of its dinginess, with the assistance of the sage, converting all the Plains west of Fort Kearney into a model Quaker landscape, it is one of the most nutritious varieties of cattle fodder, and for hundreds of miles the emigrant drover’s only dependence.

   • 2005, Tom Drury, "Path Lights", in The New Yorker, 17 October 2005

     Every few years, Ingrid goes back to take a look, even though all that’s left is the old bleached shell of a house, surrounded by blue grama grass and tall trees with pale bark and waxy leaves.

   • 2013, Philipp Meyer, The Son, Simon & Schuster 2014, p. 95:

     The grass was thick around us, grama and bluestem, more than could ever be eaten.

Anagrams

• Magar, marga

Adjective

grama f

1. feminine singular of gramo

Alternative forms

• groma

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *gramô. Cognate with Old Saxon gramo, Old Saxon gremi, Old High German gramo, Old Norse gremi. Akin also to Old English gram (“angry, cruel, fierce”), grimm, grim (“fierce, savage”).

Noun

grama m (nominative plural graman)

1. anger, rage; trouble
2. demonic spirit, devil, demon; imp, puck

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ama
• Hyphenation: gra‧ma

Etymology 1

From Latin gramĭna

Etymology 2

From Ancient Greek γράμμα (grámma, “a small weight, a scruple”), a semantic calque of Latin scripulum.

Etymology

From Latin gramĭna

Pronunciation

• Hyphenation: gra‧ma

Noun

grama f (uncountable)

1. grass (mostly varieties intended for cattle fodder)
2. (Caribbean) lawn