A Dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

A proverb with many variations on the theme of the unhealthiness of a mild winter.

1635 J. SWAN Speculum Mundi v. They also say, that a hot Christmas makes a fat

Church-yard. 1670 J. RAY English Proverbs 42 A green winter makes a fat Churchyard.

This Proverb was sufficiently confuted Anno 1667, in which the winter was very mild;

and yet no mortality.. ensued the Summer or Autumn following. 1721 J. KELLY Scottish

Proverbs 30 A green yule makes a fat Church-yard. This, and a great many proverbial

Observations, upon the Seasons of the Year, are groundless. 1858 G. ELIOT Amos Barton

in Scenes of Clerical Life I. vi. I shouldn’t wonder if it takes the old lady off. They say a

green Yule makes a fat Churchyard; but so does a white Yule too. 1945 M. SARSFIELD

(book-title) Green December Fills the Graveyard. 1950 B. PYM Some Tame Gazelle xviii.

They say a green Christmas means a full churchyard. .. I dare say some old people will be

taken. 1997 Times: Weekend 27 Dec. 16 So a green Christmas maketh a fat churchyard, as

we say in SE10. death; weather lore

greener see the GRASS is always greener on the other side of the fence.

The GREY mare is the better horse

The wife rules, or is more competent than, the husband. Cf. 1529 MORE Dialogue of
Images III. v. Here were we fallen in a grete questyon of the law, whyther the gray mare be the
better horse.. or whither he haue a wyse face or not that loketh as lyke a foole as an ewe loketh
lyke a shepe.

1546 J. HEYWOOD Dialogue of Proverbs II. iv. G4 The grey mare is the better hors.

1664 s. BUTLER Hudibras II. ii. 117 A Riding [charivari], us’d of Course, When the

Grey Mare’s the better Horse. When o’re the Breeches greedy Women Fight, to extend

their vast Dominion. 1906 J. GALSWORTHY Man of Property I. vi. D’you think he

knows his own mind? He seems to me a poor thing. I should say the gray mare was the

better horse! 1981 V. POWELL Flora Annie Steel vii. She did not wish it to seem, to

quote an old fashioned expression, that the grey mare was the better horse. .. She strove to

avoid prejudicing her husband’s position. wives and husbands

grey see also all CATS are grey in the dark.

grieve see what the EYE doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over; do not grieve that
ROSE-TREES have thorns...