verb, noun, adj — 13 senses
/ɡɹɪt/
Etymology 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.
Ergative To clench (one's teeth), particularly in reaction to pain or anger.
To cover with grit.
Obsolete To give forth a grating sound, like sand under the feet; to grate; to grind.
Etymology After the Clear Grits, 19th-century reformers so named because they wanted members who were "all sand and no dirt, clear grit all the way through".
Government, Politics Canadian A member or supporter of the Liberal Party of Canada or one of its provincial wings (except for the Quebec provincial wing).
Etymology After the Clear Grits, 19th-century reformers so named because they wanted members who were "all sand and no dirt, clear grit all the way through".
Government, Politics Canadian Of or belonging to the Liberal Party of Canada.
Etymology 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.
A collection of hard small materials, such as dirt, ground stone, debris from sandblasting or other such grinding, or swarf from metalworking.
Sand or a sand–salt mixture spread on wet and, especially, icy roads and footpaths to improve traction.
Small, hard, inedible particles in food.
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.
Idiomatic Strength of mind; courage or fearlessness; fortitude.
Etymology From Middle English *gryt (“bran, chaff”), from Old English grytt, from Proto-West Germanic *gruti (“coarsely ground bits”), ablaut variant of Proto-Indo-European *gʰrewd-. See above. Doublet of goetta.
Plural normally Husked but unground oats.
Plural normally Coarsely ground corn or hominy used as porridge.
Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — authors: page histories for grit and Grit.