green / grēn/ • adj. 1. of the color between blue and yellow in the spectrum; colored like grass or emeralds: the leaves are bright green. ∎  consisting of fresh vegetables of this color: a green salad. ∎  denoting a light or flag of this color used as a signal to proceed. ∎  (of a ski run) of the lowest level of difficulty, as indicated by colored markers on the run. ∎  Physics denoting one of three colors of quark.2. covered with grass, trees, or other plants: proposals that would smother green fields with development. ∎  (usu. Green) concerned with or supporting protection of the environment as a political principle: a Green candidate for the European parliament. ∎  (of a product) not harmful to the environment.3. (of a plant or fruit) young or unripe: green shoots. ∎  (of wood) unseasoned. ∎  (of food or leather) not dried, smoked, or tanned. ∎  (of a person) inexperienced, naive, or gullible: a green recruit fresh from college. ∎  (of a memory) not fading: clubs devoted to keeping green the memory of Sherlock Holmes. ∎  still strong or vigorous: first there was green old age, hardly different from middle age. ∎ archaic (of a wound) fresh; not healed.4. (of the complexion or a person) pale and sickly-looking: “Are you all right?—You look absolutely green.” ∎  as a sign of jealousy or envy.• n. 1. green color or pigment: major roads are marked in green. ∎  green clothes or material: two girls in red and green. ∎  green foliage or growing plants: that lovely canopy of green over Puritan Road. ∎  inf., dated money: you'll save yourself some green.2. a green thing, in particular: ∎  a green light.3. a piece of public or common grassy land, esp. in the center of a town: a house overlooking the green. ∎  an area of smooth, very short grass immediately surrounding a hole on a golf course.4. (greens) green leafy vegetables: salad greens collard greens.5. (usu. Green) a member or supporter of an environmentalist group or party.• v. make or become green, in particular: ∎  [tr.] make (an urban or desert area) more verdant by planting or encouraging trees or other greenery: greening the desert. ∎  [tr.] make less harmful or more sensitive to the environment: the importance of greening this industry. ∎  [intr.] become green in color, through age or by becoming covered with plants: the roof was greening with lichen.DERIVATIVES: green·ish adj.green·ly adv.green·ness n.ORIGIN: Old English grēne (adjective), grēnian (verb), of Germanic origin; related to Dutch groen, German grün, also to grass and grow.

green traditionally the colour of jealousy, green is also taken to symbolize youth and immaturity.

In 20th century use, green (often with a capital initial) means concerned with or supporting protection of the environment as a political principle.
Reverend Green is the name of one of the six stock characters constituting the murderer and suspects in the game of Cluedo.
green belt an area of open land around a city, on which building is restricted. A green belt also marks a level of proficiency in judo, karate, or other martial arts below that of a brown belt.
Green Beret a British commando or a member of the US Army Special Forces.
Green Book in England and Wales, a book setting out the procedural rules of the county courts, bound in green.
green card in the US, a permit allowing a foreign national to live and work permanently in the US.
the green-eyed monster jealousy personified; originally from Iago's warning in Shakespeare's Othello, ‘O! beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock The meat it feeds on.’
green fingers natural ability in growing plants; recorded from the 1930s.
green light a signal that one may proceed with one's chosen course; often in give the green light to. The allusion is to a green light in traffic signals.
green man a man dressed up in greenery to represent a wild man of the woods or seasonal fertility. A carved image of this is often seen in medieval English churches, as a human face with branches and foliage growing out of the mouth.
Green Mountain State an informal name for Vermont.
Green Paper in the UK, a preliminary report of government proposals that is published in order to provoke discussion.
Green Party an environmentalist political party. Green Parties arose in Europe in the early 1970s, since when they have achieved a certain amount of electoral success, particularly in Germany. The Green Party in Britain was founded in 1973 as the Ecology Party, changing its name in 1985.
green room a room in a theatre or studio in which performers can relax when they are not performing. The name probably derives from the room's originally being painted green. The first reference to it is in Love Makes a Man (1701), a play by Colley Cibber.
green shoots signs of growth or renewal, especially of economic recovery. The expression in this context derives from a misquotation, ‘the green shoots of recovery’, of a speech made by the Conservative politician Norman Lamont when Chancellor in 1991, when he said that, ‘The green shoots of economic spring are appearing once again.’
Green Thursday another name for Maundy Thursday, perhaps referring to the practice of giving green branches to penitents who had made their confession on Ash Wednesday.
a green Yule makes a fat churchyard a mild winter is traditionally unhealthy; saying recorded from the mid 17th century.
Green Zone an area in central Baghdad which is the base for representatives of the coalition and the Iraqi interim government; it is subject to a high level of security.

See also the grass is always greener, little green man, believe that the moon is made of green cheese.

GREEN, WILLIAM

William Green (March 3, 1870–November 21, 1952) was a labor leader and president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Green was born in Coshocton, Ohio, the son of Hugh Green, a coal miner, and Jane Oram. He completed the eighth grade and aspired to the Baptist ministry, but at fourteen he began work as a water boy for the railroad. Two years later he became his father's helper in the mines, and within a few years he was a skilled pick miner. In 1892 he married Jennie Mobley, daughter of a local miner. In time he fathered six children, and he remained in the mines for nineteen years.

In 1891 Green was elected secretary of his United Mine Workers (UMW) local, and the union movement became the calling he had once sought in the ministry. He was elected president of the Ohio district in 1906. In 1913 miners elected Green UMW national secretary-treasurer, a post he would hold until 1924. Also in 1913, Green was appointed to the powerful AFL executive committee. When AFL president Samuel Gompers died in December 1924, executive council members chose Green to succeed him. Green served as AFL president for the next twenty-eight years.

Although Green was a moralistic man who pursued a policy of peaceful cooperation with employers in the 1920s, the Great Depression clearly proved that his strategy had failed. By 1932, Green's speeches were replete with militant rhetoric about the need for "forceful methods" to bring about full employment. But militancy never suited Green. With rising rank-and-file pressure to seek legislative redress, Green happily assumed his chores as leading lobbyist for labor. His efforts helped to shape and pass many New Deal reforms, including the National Industrial Recovery Act (1933), the National Labor Relations Act (1935), the Social Security Act (1935), and the Fair Labor Standards Act (1938).

When many AFL organizing campaigns during the Depression failed, a rupture developed between conservative craft union leaders, who dominated the AFL executive council, and more militant industrial union advocates. The second group, led by John L. Lewis of the UMW, pushed for aggressive campaigns to organize mass-production workers on an industry wide basis. The defeat of Lewis's resolutions at the 1935 AFL convention and the subsequent rise of the Committee for Industrial Organization (in 1938 to become the Congress of Industrial Organizations, CIO) shaped the remainder of Green's career as a labor official. Green voted with the executive council majority in 1936 to suspend the CIO unions and in 1938 to expel them. For the rest of his life his energies would be consumed by a crusade against the rebel movement. Although he attended peace conferences with the CIO, the two labor federations remained divided until after his death.

By 1939, however, Green's power and influence within the AFL began to decline with the rise of an ambitious George Meany in the post of secretary-treasurer. Green did spearhead a vigorous but unsuccessful campaign to repeal the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, but by the time of his death in 1952 he had become a largely forgotten figure.

See Also: AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR (AFL); CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS (CIO); LEWIS, JOHN L.; ORGANIZED LABOR; UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA (UMWA).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bernstein, Irving. Turbulent Years: A History of the American Worker, 1933–1941. 1969.

Madison, Charles A. "William Green: In Gompers' Footsteps." In American Labor Leaders: Personalities and Forces in the Labor Movement. 1950.

Phelan, Craig. "William Green and the Ideal of Christian Cooperation." In Labor Leaders in America, edited by Melvyn Dubofsky and Warren Van Tine. 1987.

Phelan, Craig. William Green: Biography of a Labor Leader. 1989.

Craig Phelan

Green, William Curtis (1875–1960). English architect. A pupil of Belcher, he set up a practice in 1898 and designed a number of electricity-generating stations, houses, and cottages (notably at Letchworth Garden City and Hampstead Garden Suburb). He became a partner in the London firm of Dunn and Watson (1912), responsible for several accomplished Classical buildings, including Wolseley House of 1921 (later Barclays Bank) and the National Westminster Bank (with details derived from Peruzzi), both in Piccadilly, and the Scottish Provident Institution, Pall Mall (with elements derived from Michelangelo's New Sacristy, San Lorenzo, Florence). In the 1930s he designed the exterior and interiors of the Dorchester Hotel, London, the structure of which was by Owen Williams. He also designed churches (e.g. St Christopher, Cove, Hants. (1934) ).

Bibliography

A. S. Gray (1985);
J. Lloyd (ed.) (1978);
Me. Miller (1992, 2002);
Miller & and Gray (1992);
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (1971);
Reilly (1931)

green of the colour of growing herbage, verdant OE.; fresh, young, unripe, immature XVII. OE. grēne = OS. grōni (Du. groen), OHG. gruoni (G. grün), ON. grœnn :- Gmc. *ʒrōnjaz, f. *ʒrō- (see GROW).
Hence greenery XVIII. greengage XVIII. f. name of Sir William Gage. greenhorn perh. orig. ox with green (i.e. young) horns XV; inexperienced person XVII. greening †variety of pear; apple which is green when ripe. XVII. prob. — MDu. groeninc (Du. groening) kind of apple. greenness OE.