Not this, this! The grigri I’m taking about is a type of belaying device. How did this name originate?
My guess was that grigri was a nickname for belaying cleats on a sailboat. These are basically high-friction posts that you wrap the rope around and they have a ratchet inside so they only turn (and let you pull the rope) one way. So they would have made a ``gri… gri’’ noise when in use.
Now, the climbing grigri doesn’t use a ratchet, as far as I know, but maybe gri gri just kinda mosey’d on over to the climbing world, just like belaying did in the first place.
Any Francophone dopers want to weigh in here?
I was really hoping this would be the solution to the missing ~gry word.
I wonder if the manufacturer (petzl) made the name up. Still you’d figure there’s an explanation.
Well, dictionary.com informs me that grigri is an West African word to describe an amulet, fetish, or charm-- so maybe they just chose that as a product name because a) the language source is exotic and evocative of fabulous explorations, and b) it effectively translates to “cool little widget we don’t have a better name for.”
A similar word gligli is sometimes used in (Swiss) French. (It might be regional, because I’ve only ever heard it in the frenchspeaking part of Switzerland.)
It means ‘thingumajig’, or an undefined object… Maybe related?