nitty-gritty
/ˈnɪtiˈɡɹɪti/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 2.62 in modern English
18
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
3
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "He gave a short summary without getting into the nitty-gritty of the problem."
- "1976, United States. National Commission on Arthritis and Related Musculoskeletal Diseases, Arthritis - Out of the Maze We deal with them at a very, very nitty gritty level, and we deal with the results of years and years of problems that they've had in the past."
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. 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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *gʰrewd-, *greutą
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈnɪtiˈɡɹɪti/
- British English: /ˌnɪtiˈɡɹɪti/
Usage
Inflected Forms
knitty-gritty (alternative)
nitty gritty (alternative)
more nitty-gritty (comparative)
most nitty-gritty (superlative)