grade.

Webster's Dictionary (GCIDE)

1.To arrange in order, steps, or degrees, according to size, quality, rank, etc. [1913 Webster]

2.To reduce to a level, or to an evenly progressive ascent, as the line of a canal or road. [1913 Webster]

3.(Stock Breeding) To cross with some better breed; to improve the blood of. [1913 Webster]

1.A step or degree in any series, rank, quality, order; relative position or standing; as, grades of military rank; crimes of every grade; grades of flour. [1913 Webster]

They also appointed and removed, at their own pleasure, teachers of every grade.— Buckle.[1913 Webster]

2.In a railroad or highway: (a) The rate of ascent or descent; gradient; deviation from a level surface to an inclined plane; -- usually stated as so many feet per mile, or as one foot rise or fall in so many of horizontal distance; as, a heavy grade; a grade of twenty feet per mile, or of 1 in 264. (b) A graded ascending, descending, or level portion of a road; a gradient. [1913 Webster]

3.(Stock Breeding) The result of crossing a native stock with some better breed. If the crossbreed have more than three fourths of the better blood, it is called high grade. [1913 Webster]

At grade, on the same level; -- said of the crossing of a railroad with another railroad or a highway, when they are on the same level at the point of crossing.

Down grade, a descent, as on a graded railroad.

Up grade, an ascent, as on a graded railroad.

Equating for grades. See under Equate.

Grade crossing, a crossing at grade. [1913 Webster]