grit

Meaning

Noun

1. (uncountable) A collection of hard small materials, such as dirt, ground stone, debris from sandblasting or other such grinding, or swarf from metalworking.
2. (uncountable) A collection of hard small materials, such as dirt, ground stone, debris from sandblasting or other such grinding, or swarf from metalworking.
3. (uncountable) Small, hard, inedible particles in food.
4. (uncountable) A measure of the size of abrasive grains, such as those on sandpaper, and thus their relative coarseness or fineness; the smaller the number, the coarser the abrasive: thus, 60 is rough, 600 is fine, and 3000 is ultrafine.
5. (uncountable) A hard, coarse-grained siliceous sandstone; gritstone. Also, a finer sharp-grained sandstone, e.g., grindstone grit.
6. (idiomatic, uncountable) Strength of mind; courage or fearlessness; fortitude.

Verb

1. Apparently only in grit one's teeth: to clench, particularly in reaction to pain or anger.
2. To cover with grit.
3. (intransitive, obsolete) To give forth a grating sound, like sand under the feet; to grate; to grind.

Synonyms

gravel

sand

pebble

courage

pluck

guts

bravery

rubble

gritstone

nerve

backbone

crunch

grind

coarse sand

gritrock

spirit

moxie

willpower

gnash

creak

gumption

aggregate

lattice

mettle

mettled

particle size

perseverance

porridge

scratch

slack

soul

spunk

stamina

stone

🪨

streptococcus

valor

valour

cranch

craunch

fine gravel

grain size

crack

grinding powder

mesh size

small particles

sandgravel

hard sludge

grain fineness

abradant

fineness number

Translations

sable

sabbia

arena

areia

Sand

zand

steengruis

Mut

cran

gravier

ghiaia

gruis

grind

Streusand

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ɡɹɪt/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English: grete

Inherited from Old English: greot

Inherited from Middle English: *gryt

Inherited from Old English: grytt

In summary

With early modern vowel shortening, from Middle English grete, griet, from Old English grēot, from Proto-West Germanic *greut, from Proto-Germanic *greutą. Compare grist.