A corruption of greesing stairs. Greesings (steps) still survives in the architectural word grees, and in the compound word de-grees. There is still on the hill at Lincoln a flight of stone steps called “Grecian stairs.”
“Paul stood on the greezen [i.e. stairs].” —Wicliffe: Acts xxi. 40.
Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894