Definition of "grunsel"

Next came oneWho mourn'd in earnest, when the Captive ArkMaim'd his brute Image, head and hands lopt offIn his own Temple, on the grunsel edge,Where he fell flat […]

1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […]; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, lines 458–61

South beside the altar's ledgeFair Zenild drew her knifeNorth upon the grunsel edgeSir Schinnild lost his life.

1804, William Herbert, “Sir Ebba”, in Miscellaneous Poems, volume I

Basked in the sun, or plunged into thy stream's [1.20]Alternate, all a summer's day, or coursedOver the sandy fields, and dashed the flowersOf yellow grunsel […]

1799, William Wordsworth, The Two-Part Prelude, Book I

Travelled for some miles along the open country, which was all without hedgerows, sometimes arable, sometimes moorish, and often whole tracts covered with grunsel.

1803, Dorothy Wordsworth, Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland, First Week

If thou return not, Gammer o'er her pailevermore the petlings, with sad brow,Will look for thee upon the holly bough,Where thou didst chirp thy signal note, ere onThe lowly grunsel thou didst light […]

1845, Thomas Cooper, The Purgatory of Suicides, Book the Fourth, Stanza IX

Blue skippers in sunny hours ope and shut / Where wormwood and grunsel flowers by the cart ruts […]

1841–1864, John Clare, "We passed by green closes" (one of the "Knight Transcripts", copied from Clare's manuscript poems written while he was involuntarily confined at the Northampton General Lunatic Asylum)

"Yes; Messrs. So-and-so lets me go in their grounds and get the bird-seed. Yer see, I got grun'sel here, and plantain and chick-weed"

1894, Frederic Morrell Holmes, Some Unfasionable Slums: Second Round—South London, in The Quiver: The Illustrated Magazine for Sunday and General Reading: