Grade
Grade (grād) , noun
[French grade, Latin gradus step, pace, grade, from gradi to step, go. Compare Congress, Degree, Gradus.]
1.
A step or degree in any series, rank, quality, order; relative position or standing; as, grades of military rank; crimes of every grade; grades of flour.
They also appointed and removed, at their own pleasure,
teachers of every grade.
2.
(a) In a railroad or highway The rate of ascent or descent; gradient; deviation from a level surface to an inclined plane; -- usually stated as so many feet per mile, or as one foot rise or fall in so many of horizontal distance; as, a heavy grade; a grade of twenty feet per mile, or of 1 in 264.
(b)
In a railroad or highway A graded ascending, descending, or level portion of a road; a gradient.
3.
(Stock Breeding) The result of crossing a native stock with some better breed. If the crossbreed have more than three fourths of the better blood, it is called high grade.
Collocations (5)
At grade , on the same level; -- said of the crossing of a railroad with another railroad or a highway, when they are on the same level at the point of crossing.
Down grade , a descent, as on a graded railroad.
Up grade , an ascent, as on a graded railroad.
Equating for grades , See under Equate.
Grade crossing , a crossing at grade.
Grade , transitive verb
1.
To arrange in order, steps, or degrees, according to size, quality, rank, etc.
2.
To reduce to a level, or to an evenly progressive ascent, as the line of a canal or road.
3.
(Stock Breeding) To cross with some better breed; to improve the blood of.