Green’s Dictionary of Slang

grizzle v.

[despite the lack of cits., the v. is prob. contemporary with grizzle n. (1)]

to whine, to cry slightly but continually, usu. of a child.

[UK]Catnach Ballad in Westminster Gaz. 7 Apr. (1899) 2/2: Useless is our grumbling, our grizzling, or mumbling [OED].
E. Yates Forlorn Hope III 175: I went abroad, and remained grizzling and feeding on my own heart for months .
[UK]M.E. Braddon To the Bitter End I 264: If the locket’s lost, it’s lost, [...] and there’s no use in grizzling about it.
[Aus]D. Niland Shiralee 115: He was never done grizzling. If it wasn’t the weather it was the sheep. If it wasn’t the sheep it was the tucker, if not the tucker, the accommodation.
[UK]F. Norman in Sun. Times 16 Aug. in Norman’s London (1969) 152: Now and then an actor who has incurred her displeasure will come and grizzle to me about the way he is being treated.
[UK]M. Amis London Fields 369: I have a refreshing little sob and feel much the better for it. I grizzle and blub. I weep it out.

In compounds

grizzle-guts (n.) [gut n. (1a)]

a grumbler, a whinger.

[UK]‘R. Andom’ Martha and I 66: She, Mrs. Tucklebury, is a ‘grizzle-guts’.
F.F. Manfred This Is the Year 385: Wal, grizzle-guts, when you guys come around to test my cows, don’t expect nothin’ less than a pants full a lead fer yer trouble.
[Aus]D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 196: I told myself that old Grizzle-guts would probably give me curry in his rag.
[NZ](con. 1940s) G. Slatter Pagan Game (1969) 175: Grizzleguts matted me for coming back five days late.
[Aus]B. Fuller Nullarbor Story 65: I was expectin’ a cobber and he was a proper grizzle-guts.
[UK]Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 90: He may also be called [...] ‘grizzle-guts’.
Business Review Weekly (Aus.) 23 182/2: It’s all right for these grumble-bums, grizzle-guts, and other assorted sulk merchants belly-aching about bed shortages and budget cuts, but clearly these bleaters have no idea how demanding some of these patients can be.
J. Kelly Rock Me Gently [ebook] The other girls, who looked on crying as a weakness, ignored me. Ruth called me a grizzle-guts, telling me I'd end up with water on my brain.

In phrases

street grizzling (n.)

(UK tramp) the practice of singing pitiful songs to beg money; thus grizzler n., a singing tramp.

[UK]F. Jennings Tramping with Tramps 128: Every tramp worthy of his name has [...] tried his hand at street-grizzling. [Ibid.] 134: Cambridge, he informed me, was a fine field for ‘grizzlers’.