Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Grayish or flecked with gray.
  • noun A grizzly bear.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A machine used for breaking coal or other material to a moderately small size.
  • Somewhat gray; grayish.
  • noun ; pl. grizzlies (-liz). 1. The grizzly bear, Ursus horribilis. See I.
  • noun In mining: An arrangement in the sluices used in washing auriferous gravel for receiving and throwing out the large stones carried down by the current.
  • noun In Australia, a coarse grating of timber for separating large pieces of quartz from the decomposed rock with which they are associated, in some of the forms of granitic dikes containing auriferous quartz peculiar to that region.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Somewhat gray; grizzled.
  • adjective (Zoöl.) a large and ferocious bear (Ursus horribilis) of Western North America and the Rocky Mountains. It is remarkable for the great length of its claws.
  • noun (Zoöl.) A grizzly bear. See under grizzly, a.
  • noun Local, U. S. In hydraulic mining, gratings used to catch and throw out large stones from the sluices.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Grey-haired, greyish.
  • noun A grizzly bear.
  • noun US, dialect In hydraulic mining, a grating used to catch and throw out large stones from the sluices.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun powerful brownish-yellow bear of the uplands of western North America
  • adjective showing characteristics of age, especially having grey or white hair

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From grizzle.

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Examples

  • A mama grizzly is a conservative woman with "common sense," as Sarah Palin puts it, someone who "rises up" to protect her children when she sees them endangered by bad policies in Washington.

    Hear Them Growl 2010

  • I wonder if a grizzly is anything like a polar and can swim for miles out at sea?

    Grizzly Bears Sighted On Vancouver Island Dave Hurteau 2008

  • ED HENRY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, nearly five years after vowing he'd get Osama bin Laden dead or alive, President Bush today acknowledged the terrorist is a major threat all around the world, taking the extraordinary step of quoting bin Laden's own words in letters to followers as well as what he called grizzly al Qaeda manuals to dramatize just how potent the terror group is right now, a delicate balancing act for this president.

    CNN Transcript Sep 5, 2006 2006

  • If you choose to hunt in grizzly country then you should be aware and be careful, or at least accept the possibility of danger.

    Montana Pheasant Hunters Bags Charging Grizzly 2009

  • Haley, who has two children but has never referred to herself as a grizzly, is just the sort of pro-business, low-tax, limited-government conservative Palin loves.

    Hear Them Growl 2010

  • While a few women have dominated the airwaves, some in grizzly gear, others armed with charts and graphs -- most of us are wondering what we can do to exponentially change the number of women in office, in leadership and in the pipeline at all levels of government.

    Karen Middleton: 2010: The Year of Talking About Women and Elections Karen Middleton 2010

  • In short, he was looked upon as a bald-faced grizzly from the Arctic wilds to whom it was considered expedient to give the trail.

    Chapter X 2010

  • If you choose to hunt in grizzly country then you should be aware and be careful, or at least accept the possibility of danger.

    Montana Pheasant Hunters Bags Charging Grizzly 2009

  • The Daisy grizzly is youth sized, but the barrel is a smooth bore.

    Youth Air Guns 2009

  • "A mama grizzly is like a grizzly bear out in her natural habitat where she's working really, really hard to feed herself and to feed her young ones."

    A very scary midterm exam Washington Post staff 2010

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