GREASE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does grease mean? 

• GREASE (noun)
  The noun GREASE has 2 senses:

1. a thick fatty oil (especially one used to lubricate machinery)

2. the state of being covered with unclean things

  Familiarity information: GREASE used as a noun is rare.

• GREASE (verb)
  The verb GREASE has 1 sense:

1. lubricate with grease

  Familiarity information: GREASE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GREASE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A thick fatty oil (especially one used to lubricate machinery)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting substances

Synonyms:

grease; lubricating oil

Hypernyms ("grease" is a kind of...):

oil (a slippery or viscous liquid or liquefiable substance not miscible with water)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "grease"):

axle grease (a thick heavy grease used to lubricate axles)

Derivation:

grease (lubricate with grease)

greasy (smeared or soiled with grease or oil)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The state of being covered with unclean things

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

dirt; filth; grease; grime; grunge; soil; stain

Hypernyms ("grease" is a kind of...):

dirtiness; uncleanness (the state of being unsanitary)

Derivation:

grease (lubricate with grease)

• GREASE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they grease    ... he / she / it greases   
Past simple: greased   
Past participle: greased   
-ing form: greasing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Lubricate with grease

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Context example:

grease the wheels

Hypernyms (to "grease" is one way to...):

cover (provide with a covering or cause to be covered)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

grease (the state of being covered with unclean things)

grease (a thick fatty oil (especially one used to lubricate machinery))

 Context examples 

So she took pity on them, and made use of the butter to grease them all, so that the wheels might not hurt them so much.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

“Somehow Tommy’s grub always tastes of grease, stale grease, and I reckon he ain’t changed his shirt since he left ’Frisco.”

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

There is goose-grease in a box, if the old scars ache at the turn of the weather.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was so high that I could not reach the top of it with my hand, and it appeared to be covered with grease.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

An' he went like greased lightnin' once he got started.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Have you greased the hubs, as I told you?

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I had the tallow of three hundred cows, for greasing my boat, and other uses.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

This, and the resumption of my ring, as well as of the bear's grease in moderation, are the last marks I can discern, now, in my progress to seventeen.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The light in the cabin was dim, filtering through in a small window made of onion-skin writing paper and oiled with bacon grease, so that John Messner could not make out very well what the woman looked like.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Mr. Knightley looked as if he were more gratified than he cared to express; and before he could make any reply, Mr. Woodhouse, whose thoughts were on the Bates's, said—It is a great pity that their circumstances should be so confined! a great pity indeed! and I have often wished—but it is so little one can venture to do—small, trifling presents, of any thing uncommon—Now we have killed a porker, and Emma thinks of sending them a loin or a leg; it is very small and delicate—Hartfield pork is not like any other pork—but still it is pork—and, my dear Emma, unless one could be sure of their making it into steaks, nicely fried, as ours are fried, without the smallest grease, and not roast it, for no stomach can bear roast pork—I think we had better send the leg—do not you think so, my dear?

(Emma, by Jane Austen)