- tight-fisted; a mean person. A much used word and, as this quotation from John Galt’s The Provost (1822) shows, grippiness was sometimes more of a necessity than a sin: Standing now clear and free of the world, I had less incitement to be so grippy. Perhaps a grudging admiration may lurk behind J. Ballantyne’s remark in The Miller of Deanhaugh (1844) That auld grippy gets his work completed for half its value. The same may be said of the fellow in Thomas Logan’s poem (1871): A shrewd pawkie carle, but grippy a wee, Yet no a bad mortal when in a guid key.
Look closely at Effie’s marriage qualifications – she might be ugly, but she certainly could hang onto the halfpennies: Folk wondered at his takin’ Effie, wha was a roch-lookin’, ill-faured body, but gruppy wi’ bawbees (William Blair Kildermoch 1910).