grit n.1
(US) solidity or strength of character, spirit, pluck, stamina; thus be the grit v., to be the ‘right sort’ of person, to be the ‘genuine article’.
 | Poet. Dict. 53: The prude doats on beauty, the bully on grit [DA]. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Yankee Notions 10: ’E’s proper stuff; clear grit, I swow! | |
| Brother Jonathan II 14: A chap who was clear grit for a tussle, any time. | |
| Life in the Far West (1849) 8: Thar was old grit in him. | |
| Nevada Journal 12 Dec. 1: Green was a large, powerful man, but had no grit, and Shortez offered to fight him for the money but Green backed water. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Adventures of Philip (1899) 494: If you were a chip off the old block you would be just what he called ‘the grit’. | |
| Hoosier Mosaics 117: If there’s one thing I do have more ’n another in my nater it’s common sense grit. | |
| Camps in the Rockies 17: It takes moments of danger to discover a man’s true grit – the ‘bottom sand,’ as a plainsman would say. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Bulletin (Sydney) 21 Feb. 10/2: Who’s afraid! Put me in a sentry-box with an arm-chair and a gas-stove, outside a public house, and I’ll keep guard till further orders. I’m good colonial grit, I am. | |
| Long Odds III 52: ‘They're grit, they are, these swells, and no mistake,' murmured John Bramton [...] ‘a hundred thousand pounds out of his pocket, and yet he don't make so much fuss about it as I’ve seen a fellow make over a losing deal at penny Van John’. | |
| Adrift in America 209: I had not the grit even to try and board a freight train. | |
| Blazed Trail 161: Nothing was to be depended on but sheer dogged grit. | |
| Varmint 168: ‘Good nerve.’ [...] ‘Pure grit.’. | |
| ‘Wounded’ Coll. Poems 152: Women’s funny – / So they are! / But who taught ’em / About war? / Where’d they learn / Their bit of drill? / Who is it took ’em / Through the mill? / And gave ’em grit / Enough for ten. | |
| Working Bullocks 184: All that there was of him was grit really. He was so crack-hardy and chirpy always. | |
| ‘A Veteran’ Close of Play 6: I sit / Glad-hearted on a bench and note / How Sussex vim and grit / Make red-rose Lancaster decline to hit. | |
| They Die with Their Boots Clean 85: For sheer sand in the belly, grit, spine, nerve, and guts, some o’ these soft-looking civvies take some beating. | |
| Complete Molesworth (1985) 318: Do not be discouraged, however, show grit, courage, determination. | |
| Cotters’ England (1980) 128: I thought you had the grit to face your fate. | |
| ‘The Last Carousel’ Texas Stories (1995) 124: You had to work for nothing or you’d never get rich. Grit counted more than money. | |
| (con. 1950s) Second From Last in the Sack Race 256: Her face was sturdy. It had character. It had grit. | |
| Homeboy 55: We got the grit and savvy to put all this behind us. | |
| Championship Sailing 233: From the importance of making sailboat racing fun to what sailors with true grit can teach us. |
In phrases
(US) to endure hardship.
| Midnight Clear 6: I determined to grit it hard for another burst or two hundred yards. | |
| Long Gray Line 154: Most simply gritted out whatever ailed them. | |
| Watergate 649: ‘Let them impeach me [...] We’ll fight it out to the end.’ Nixon would grit it out . |
1. (also pure grit) the genuine item, the ‘real thing’.
| London Eve. Standard 12 Nov. 4/4: Yankee Courtship [...] By the hokey if Sally Jones isn’t real grit, there’s no snakes. | |
| Letters of Major J. Downing (1835) 50: ‘None of your rags,’ says I, ‘but the real grit [i.e. gold].’. | |
| Andrew Jackson 43: They seed that he was the rale grit. | |
| Cornwall Chron. (Launceston, Tas.) 11 Mar. 1/4: By the hookey, if Sally Jones isnt the real grit, the there’s no stakes. | |
| Clockmaker III 201: I poured him out a gill of the pure grit. | |
| Yorkville Enquirer (SC) 3 July 2/3: He shouted, ‘It’s the real grit;’ and a long drawn swill at once demonstrated his faith in its potency. | |
| Sporting Life (London) 17 Oct. 3/4: This round was a ‘real grit’. |
2. (US, also good grit, true grit) an admirable person.
| Amer. Humour i: I reckon the chaplain was the real grit for a parson – always doin’ as he’d be done by, and practisin’ a darn’d sight more than he preached [F&H]. | |
| Legends of the West 38: These Mingoes act mighty redick’lous [...] They aint the raal true grit, no how. | |
| Run Through the United States II 118: From being paupers in Europe, or rather mere ‘pisantry,’ that here they are the ‘real grit’ of the land. | |
| Waggeries and Vagaries 15: I recking that he was the raal grit for a parson. | |
| Life and Liberty in America 104: Among the pure Americanisms may be cited the following: [...] Grit, the real grit, the true grit. These words or phrases are used to signify a person of superior worth, solidity, and genuineness [...] The miller is evidently the parent of this expression. | |
| Siliad 181: For Devils, out and out, thou art not fit, / For Devil-dodgers, just the real grit. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 24 Oct. 6/3: In a certain town up North there recently lived a party by the name of Brown, and he woke up one morning to find himself stone-broke and on the threshold of ruin. Being ‘real grit,’ however, he determined to stake his all on a double, which would either put him straight again, or at least provide for his wife and children. | |
| in Overland Monthly (CA) July 65: I hev allus knowed ye ter be the true grit. | |
| Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 6 Feb. 2/7: The feller was good grit as I ever see, an’ ’stead o’ givin’ up as as a man genally does when he's dropped his knife [he] picked up his knife with his left hand, an’ jumped at Wilson as quick as a cat. |
3. (US black) the absolute truth, the essential facts.
| Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.]. |