grit

Plural: grits

Noun

• a hard coarse-grained siliceous sandstone
• fortitude and determination
• A collection of hard small materials, such as dirt, ground stone, debris from sandblasting or other such grinding, or swarf from metalworking.
• 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.
• A hard, coarse-grained siliceous sandstone; gritstone. Also, a finer sharp-grained sandstone, e.g., grindstone grit.
• Strength of mind; courage or fearlessness; fortitude.
• Husked but unground oats.
• Coarsely ground corn or hominy used as porridge.

Verb

Verb Forms: gritted, gritting, grits

• To clench or grind one's teeth, or persevere with courage.
• cover with a grit
  • "grit roads"
• clench together
  • "grit one's teeth"
• Apparently only in grit one's teeth: to clench, particularly in reaction to pain or anger.
• To cover with grit.
• To give forth a grating sound, like sand under the feet; to grate; to grind.

Examples

• grits and eggs
• ham and grits
• He had to grit his teeth and play a low-scoring word to set up a better play next turn.
• He has a sleeping disorder and grits his teeth.
• I need a sheet of 100 grit sandpaper.
• That kid with the cast on his arm has the grit to play dodgeball.
• The flower beds were white with grit from sand blasting the flagstone walkways.
• These cookies seem to have grit from nutshells in them.
• We had no choice but to grit our teeth and get on with it.

Synonyms

backbone, gritrock, gritstone, gumption, guts, moxie, sand

Related Words

debris, grind, grindstone, groat, grout, gruel, mortar and pestle, sand, sandblasting, sandy, swarf

Anagrams of grit