nitty-gritty

Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word nitty-gritty. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word nitty-gritty, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say nitty-gritty in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word nitty-gritty you have here. The definition of the word nitty-gritty will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofnitty-gritty, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.

English

WOTD – 7 November 2020

Etymology

Of uncertain origin; said to have been first used by black jazz musicians from the United States, the word is perhaps a reduplication of gritty (“resembling grit”) (ultimately from Proto-Germanic *greutą (“grit”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrewd-) with alteration of the first syllable.

An urban legend links the origin of the word to the debris remaining in the holds of slave ships after the slaves had been disembarked, but there is no evidence for this. The word is not attested early enough to have been associated with slavery.

Pronunciation

Noun

nitty-gritty (uncountable)

  1. (originally US, colloquial, also attributively) The core or essence of something; the gist.
    Synonyms: brass tacks, nuts and bolts; see also Thesaurus:gist
    He gave a short summary without getting into the nitty-gritty of the problem.

Derived terms

Translations

References

  1. ^ “nitty-gritty, n. and adj.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2003; “nitty-gritty, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  2. ^ Gary Martin (1997–) “Nitty-gritty”, in The Phrase Finder; Michael Quinion (created November 11, 2000, last updated October 25, 2008) “Nitty-gritty”, in World Wide Words.

Further reading

Wikious
Boobota
Sagapedia