gralloch

English

Etymology

From Scottish Gaelic grealach (“entrails”), from Proto-Celtic *gre-lach, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰer- (“bowels”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡɹælək/

Noun

gralloch (uncountable)

1. (Scotland, rare) The entrails or offal of a dead deer.

Verb

gralloch (third-person singular simple present grallochs, present participle gralloching, simple past and past participle gralloched)

1. (Scotland, rare) To eviscerate a deer.
   • 1977, Angela Carter, The Passion of New Eve:

     On our mattress in the secret nights, the girls whispered to me how he’d been watching her in a revival of Emma Bovary in an art-house in Berkeley and Tristessa’s eyes, eyes of a stag about to be gralloched, had fixed directly upon his and held them.

   • 2012, Simon Armitage, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight‎^[1], page 64:

     Then the beasts were prised apart at the breast,
     and they went to work on the gralloching again,
     riving open the front as far as the hind-fork,
     fetching out the offal, then with further purpose
     filleting the ribs in the recognised fashion.

Further reading

• MacBain, Alexander, Mackay, Eneas (1911) “gralloch”, in An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language‎^[2], Stirling, →ISBN