grizzle: [18] Grizzle ‘whine, complain’ is a bit of a puzzle. It has no obvious ancestor, and it is tempting to conclude that it originated as an ironic allusion to ‘patient Griselda’ (popularly Grizel from the 14th to the 19th centuries), the proverbial meek, uncomplaining wife. Against this it has to be said that in the earliest recorded examples of the verb it means ‘grin’, and that the sense ‘whine, complain’ did not emerge until the 19th century; however, grizzle ‘grin’ may be a different word.
The adjective grizzle ‘grey’ [15] is now obsolete, but it lives on in its derivatives grizzled ‘grey-haired’ [15] and grizzly [16] (as in grizzly bear). It was borrowed from Old French grisel, a derivative of gris ‘grey’, which goes back ultimately to prehistoric Germanic *grīsiaz.
"gray-colored," mid-14c., from Old French grisel "gray" (see grizzled) which also meant "gray-haired old man; gray horse" (senses recorded in Middle English from mid-14c.). The verb, "to make gray," is attested from 1740.
