graft [LME] A graft is a shoot from one plant fixed into a slit made in another to form a new growth. Originally spelled graff, it derives from Greek graphion ‘stylus, pointed writing implement’, from graphein ‘to write’, source, via German Graphit, of the graphite [L18th] in your pencil, graphic art [M17th], and diagram [E17th]. The tapered tip of the shoot was thought to resemble a stylus. The other graft [M19th], ‘hard work’, may be related to the phrase spade’s graft ‘the amount of earth that one stroke of a spade will move’, based on Old Norse groftr ‘digging’. The sense ‘bribery’ [L19th] may be related, but its exact origin, in the USA, is unknown.