different between audacity vs grit

English

Etymology

From late Middle English audacite, from Medieval Latin audacitas, from Latin audax (“bold”), from aude? (“I am bold, I dare”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) enPR: ô-d??s?ti, IPA^(key): /???dæs?ti/
• (US) enPR: ô-d??s?ti, IPA^(key): /??dæs?ti/

Noun

audacity (countable and uncountable, plural audacities)

1. Insolent boldness, especially when imprudent or unconventional.

   The brash private had the audacity to criticize the general.

   Somebody never pays his loans, yet he has the audacity to ask the bank for money.
2. Fearlessness, intrepidity or daring, especially with confident disregard for personal safety, conventional thought, or other restrictions.

Synonyms

• (insolent boldness): audaciousness, outdaciousness, temerity

Related terms

• audacious

Translations

Further reading

• audacity in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• audacity in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• audacity at OneLook Dictionary Search

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /????t/
• Rhymes: -?t

Etymology 1

With early modern vowel shortening, from Middle English grete, griet, from Old English gr?ot, from Proto-Germanic *greut? (compare German Grieß, Swedish gryta, Norwegian Nynorsk grjot), from Proto-Indo-European *g?r-eu-d- (compare Lithuanian grúodas (“frost; frozen street dirt”), Serbo-Croatian gr?da (“lump”)).

Noun

grit (uncountable)

1. A collection of hard small materials, such as dirt, ground stone, debris from sandblasting or other such grinding, or swarf from metalworking.
   1. Sand or a sand–salt mixture spread on wet and, especially, icy roads and footpaths to improve traction.
2. Inedible particles in food.

3. A measure of the relative coarseness of an abrasive material such as sandpaper, the smaller the number the coarser the abrasive.

4. (geology) A hard, coarse-grained siliceous sandstone; gritstone. Also, a finer sharp-grained sandstone, e.g., grindstone grit.
5. Strength of mind; great courage or fearlessness; fortitude.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of C. Reade to this entry?)

Derived terms

• gritten
• gritty

Related terms

• grind
• grindstone
• sand, sandy, sandblasting

Translations

See also

• debris
• mortar and pestle
• swarf

Verb

grit (third-person singular simple present grits, present participle gritting, simple past and past participle gritted or (nonstandard) grit)

1. Apparently only in grit one's teeth: to clench, particularly in reaction to pain or anger.

2. To cover with grit.
3. (obsolete, intransitive) To give forth a grating sound, like sand under the feet; to grate; to grind.
   • 1767, Oliver Goldsmith, The Hermit

     The sanded |floor that grits beneath the tread.

Derived terms

• grit one's teeth

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English gryt (“bran, chaff”), from Old English grytt, from Proto-Germanic *grutj? (“coarsely ground bits”) (compare Dutch grut, German Grütze), ablaut variant of Proto-Indo-European *g?r-eu-d-. See above.

Noun

grit (plural grits)

1. (usually in the plural) Husked but unground oats.
2. (usually in the plural) Coarsely ground corn or hominy used as porridge.

Related terms

• groat
• grout
• gruel

Translations

Anagrams

• girt, trig

Scots

Adjective

grit (comparative mair grit, superlative maist grit)

1. great