nitty-gritty

English

Etymology

Uncertain, said to have been used at first by black jazz musicians, perhaps ultimately from reduplication nit and grits (finely ground corn), from Old English grytt, grytta (“coarse meal”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌnɪtiˈɡrɪti/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

nitty-gritty (uncountable)

1. (colloquial) The essence or core of something; the details.

   He gave a short summary without getting into the nitty-gritty of the problem.

Synonyms

• brass tacks
• details
• nuts and bolts
• See also Thesaurus:gist

Derived terms

• nitty

Translations

essence or core of something

• German: Wesentliche n, Kern (de) m
• Icelandic: kjarni (is) m, aðalatriði (is) n, grundvallar-
• Persian: اصول (fa) (osul)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Russian: суть (ru) (sutʹ)
• Swedish: pudelns kärna (sv)
• Turkish: asıl mesele (tr), işin gerçek yüzü/içyüzü, konunun özü (tr)

References

• “nitty-gritty”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.