>
>
> Initially GREP was an abbreviation, short for "Get REPresentation".
> I learned about the meaning of GREP abbreviation from this implementation:
>
> http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/rsx/decus/rsx88b/373230/


Wikipedia says its name comes from the ed command g/re/p (globally search
for a regular expression and print matching lines).