Brewer's: Grebenski Cossacks

So called from the word greben (a comb). This title was conferred upon them by Czar Ivan I., because, in his campaign against the Tartars of the Caucasus, they scaled a mountain fortified with sharp spurs, sloping down from its summit, and projecting horizontally, like a comb (Duncan: Russia.)

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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