nitty-gritty
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
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.[1]
It has been suggested that the word originally referred to the debris remaining in the holds of slave ships after the slaves had been disembarked, but there is no evidence of such use before the 20th century when slavery was prevalent.[2]
Pronunciation[edit]
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˌnɪtiˈɡɹɪti/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈnɪtiˈɡɹɪti/, [-ɾi-]
Audio (GA) (file) - Rhymes: -ɪti
- Hyphenation: nit‧ty-grit‧ty
Noun[edit]
- (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[edit]
Translations[edit]
core or essence of something — See also translations at gist
References[edit]
- ^ “nitty-gritty, n. and adj.”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2003; “nitty-gritty, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.
- ^ Gary Martin (1997–), “Nitty-gritty”, in The Phrase Finder; Michael Quinion (created 11 November 2000, last updated 25 October 2008), “Nitty-gritty”, in World Wide Words.
Further reading[edit]
nitty-gritty (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Categories:
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *gʰrewd-
- English terms with unknown etymologies
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- Rhymes:English/ɪti
- Rhymes:English/ɪti/4 syllables
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