grit
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A collection of hard small materials, such as dirt, ground stone, debris from sandblasting or other such grinding, or swarf from metalworking.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
gritIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɡɹɪt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A collection of hard small materials, such as dirt, ground stone, debris from sandblasting or other such grinding, or swarf from metalworking.
idiomatic
Strength of mind; courage or fearlessness; fortitude.
usually in the plural
Coarsely ground corn or hominy used as porridge.
Sand or a sand–salt mixture spread on wet and, especially, icy roads and footpaths to improve traction.
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.
Small, hard, inedible particles in food.
verb
Apparently only in grit one's teeth: to clench, particularly in reaction to pain or anger.
Cover with a grit
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A collection of hard small materials, such as dirt, ground stone, debris from sandblasting or other such grinding, or swarf from metalworking.
Used this way, grit is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It stays understated rather than dramatic. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Mild
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use grit
- “The flower beds were white with grit from sand blasting the flagstone walkways.”noun
- “These cookies seem to have grit from nutshells in them.”noun
- “I need a sheet of 100 grit sandpaper.”noun
Share your sentence
Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Coarsely ground hulled corn boiled as a breakfast dish in the southern United States.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Coarsely ground hulled corn boiled as a breakfast dish in the southern United States.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: collection of hard small materials
Use This Word
See how this word sounds in a real sentence.
Ask Vocabaura
Understand the word your way.
What Does It Mean Here?
Words can change meaning depending on context.
Use it yourself
Knowing “grit” starts when you use it. Pick a next step, all free.
Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.