Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The small bones taken out of the flitch of a bacon pig.

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

  • noun obsolete The spine of a hog.

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

  • noun A lean cut of meat from the loin of a pig.
  • noun rare The bones, particularly the spine, of a pig.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Related to the Irish griscín.

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Examples

  • The thick part of the backbone that lies between the shoulders, called griskin or chine, is separated from the tapering, bony part, called backbone by way of distinction, and used as flesh.

    Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 Barkham Burroughs

  • It's eternal loss to the soul of a Mussulman that puts a knife and fork into a griskin.

    VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea David Christie Murray

  • So he called at the butcher's before he started out, and in exchange for a peep at the paper got a little bit of griskin, or a chop, and at the farmhouses as he passed they gave him a few eggs, and at the inns a drop of gin.

    Round About a Great Estate Richard Jefferies 1867

  • Upround's doctrine, between two crackles of young griskin (come straight from the rectory pig-sty), he was grieved to express a stern opinion long remembered at Flamborough:

    Mary Anerley : a Yorkshire Tale 1862

  • Roast leg or griskin of pork, apple sauce, brocoli, potatoes.

    The Book of Household Management Isabella Mary 1861

  • Roast leg or griskin of pork, apple sauce, brocoli, potatoes.

    The Book of Household Management Isabella Mary 1861

  • The hog is all nature, the ship is all art, “coarse canvass,” “blue bunting,” and “tall poles;” both are violently acted upon by the wind, tossed here and there, to and fro, and yet nothing but excess of hunger could make me look upon the pig as the more poetical of the two, and then only in the shape of a griskin.

    Life of Lord Byron Moore, Thomas, 1779-1852 1854

  • "Look'ee hyur, boyees!" cries he, squinting over his shoulders; "I'll stake this rib against a griskin o 'poor bull that' ee'll see the puttiest gal as 'ee ever set yur eyes on."

    The Scalp Hunters Mayne Reid 1850

  • I 'gun to think that both my own an' my mar's time wur come in airnest, for I hed no idee that the critter could iver swim to the other side, 'specially with me on her back, an' purticklarly as at that time these hyur ribs had a sight more griskin upon 'em than they hev now.

    The Hunters' Feast Conversations Around the Camp Fire Mayne Reid 1850

  • Nor much longer till it ceased to be a griskin -- having altogether disappeared from his fingers, followed by a gurgling sound, as half the contents of the canteen went washing it down his throat.

    The Lone Ranche Mayne Reid 1850

Comments

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  • The butcher, his kith and his kin,

    Know pigs both outside and in.

    To please and to nourish

    They carve with a flourish

    And banish each bothersome griskin.

    May 29, 2019