brushyoudaoicibaDictYouDict
brush: [14] It is not clear whether brush for sweeping and brush as in brushwood are the same word, although both appeared in the language at about the same time, from a French source. Brush ‘broken branches’ comes from brousse, the Anglo-Norman version of Old French broce, which goes back to an unrecorded Vulgar Latin *bruscia. Brush for sweeping, on the other hand, comes from Old French broisse or brosse.

It is tempting to conclude that this is a variant of Old French broce, particularly in view of the plausible semantic link that brushwood (cut twigs, etc) bundled together and tied to a handle makes a serviceable brush (that is how broom came to mean ‘brush’). The verb brush ‘move fast or heedlessly’ comes from Old French brosser ‘dash through undergrowth’, a derivative of broce; its frequent modern connotation of ‘touching in passing’ comes from the other brush.
grizzleyoudaoicibaDictYouDict
grizzle: [18] Grizzle ‘whine, complain’ is a bit of a puzzle. It has no obvious ancestor, and it is tempting to conclude that it originated as an ironic allusion to ‘patient Griselda’ (popularly Grizel from the 14th to the 19th centuries), the proverbial meek, uncomplaining wife. Against this it has to be said that in the earliest recorded examples of the verb it means ‘grin’, and that the sense ‘whine, complain’ did not emerge until the 19th century; however, grizzle ‘grin’ may be a different word.

The adjective grizzle ‘grey’ [15] is now obsolete, but it lives on in its derivatives grizzled ‘grey-haired’ [15] and grizzly [16] (as in grizzly bear). It was borrowed from Old French grisel, a derivative of gris ‘grey’, which goes back ultimately to prehistoric Germanic *grīsiaz.
wimpyoudaoicibaDictYouDict
wimp: [20] The first record of the word wimp ‘feeble ineffectual person’ is from as long ago as 1920, but it was not used at all widely until the early 1960s. Its origins have never been satisfactorily explained. It is tempting to link it with J. Wellington Wimpy, a curious little man with a moustache who featured in the Popeye cartoons, but he was not around in the 1920s.

Nor is it altogether plausible that it came from American slang gimp ‘lame or handicapped person’. Perhaps the least unlikely suggestion is that it is short for whimper. No connection with the now obsolete slang wimp ‘woman’ [20] (perhaps an alteration of women) has ever been demonstrated. In the 1980s WIMP was used as an acronym for ‘weakly interacting massive particle’ and for ‘widows/icon/mouse/pointer’, a computer term.