GRAVY  , a word usually confined to the natural juices which come from

meat during cooking . In early uses (in the New English Dictionary the quotations date from the end of the 14th to the beginning of the 16th centuries) it meant a sauce of broth flavoured with spices and almonds . The more modern usage seems to date from the end of the 16th century . The word is obscure in origin . It has been connected with "graves" or " greaves," the refuse of tallow in the manufacture of soap or candles . The more probable derivation is from the French . In Old French the word is almost certainly gram, and is derived from grain, " something used in cooking." The word was early read and spelled with a u or v instead of n, and the corruption was adopted in English .