nitty-gritty
English
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.[1]
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.[2]
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˌnɪtiˈɡɹɪti/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈnɪtiˈɡɹɪti/, [-ɾi-]
Audio (General American): (file) - Rhymes: -ɪti
- Hyphenation: nit‧ty-grit‧ty
Noun
- (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
core or essence of something — see also gist
References
- ^ “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, 2019–2022.
- ^ 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
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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- English terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English 4-syllable words
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- Rhymes:English/ɪti
- Rhymes:English/ɪti/4 syllables
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