get to grass

English

Verb

get to grass (third-person singular simple present gets to grass, present participle getting to grass, simple past got to grass, past participle (UK) got to grass or (US) gotten to grass)

1. (mining) To leave a mine and get to the surface, particularly to escape an underground disaster.
   • 1896, George Manville Fenn, Sappers and Miners; The Flood beneath the Sea, chapter 42, “Mining Matters”:

     “Come along. No fear of the water coming in, or I'd soon say let's get to grass.”

   • 1991, Larry Lankton, “The Underground: Change and Continuity”, in Cradle to Grave: Life, Work, and Death at the Lake Superior Copper Mines, chapter 2, page 33:

     Men working at deep mines started work after a long and tiring descent, and near the end of their shift they held back on their effort, so they would have enough energy left to “get to grass.”

   • 2003, Tom Bliss, song “The Silverlode of Sark”, from album Downhill All the Way:

     But love was no protection in the terror and the din
     When the island gave its answer, the day the sea broke in
     I heard the shouted warning, I tried to get to grass
     But the ladders jammed with miners, there was no room to pass
     I never was a sailor but I met a sailor's death
     Ninety feet below the ocean, I drew that dying breath