grit

Meanings

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

• 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.

Synonyms

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

Related Words

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