Etymology

grit

G2R1I1T1

Today it means: A collection of hard small materials, such as dirt, ground stone, debris from sandblasting or other such grinding, or swarf from metalworking. Full definition →

Middle English grete ← Old English grēot ← Proto-West Germanic *greut
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grit · noun, verb1

  1. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*greutą
  2. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*greut
  3. Old English · inherited fromgrēot
  4. Middle English · inherited fromgrete
  5. English todaygrit

With early modern vowel shortening, from Middle English grete, griet, from Old English grēot, from Proto-West Germanic *greut, from Proto-Germanic *greutą. Compare grist.

grit · noun2

  1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*gʰrewd-
  2. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*gruti“coarsely ground bits”
  3. Old English · inherited fromgrytt
  4. Middle English · inherited from*gryt“bran, chaff”
  5. English todaygrit

From Middle English *gryt (“bran, chaff”), from Old English grytt, from Proto-West Germanic *gruti (“coarsely ground bits”), ablaut variant of Proto-Indo-European *gʰrewd-. See above. Doublet of goetta.

Grit · noun, adjective3

After the Clear Grits, 19th-century reformers so named because they wanted members who were "all sand and no dirt, clear grit all the way through".

Words from the same roots

Old Englishgrēot all →

GirtonGirtfordGreat BridgeGretna Green

Proto-Germanic*greutą all →

nitty-gritty

Proto-West Germanic*gruti all →

goetta

Proto-Indo-European*gʰrewd- all →

greatregretnitty-gritty

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.