different between grit vs gruel

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

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English gruel, gruwel, greuel, growel (“meal or flour made from beans, lentils, etc.”), from Old French gruel (“coarse meal; > French gruau”), from Medieval Latin grutellum, diminutive of Medieval Latin grutum (“flour; meal”), from a Germanic source, likely Old English gr?t (“meal; grout”) or perhaps Frankish *gr?t; both from Proto-Germanic *gr?tiz (“ground material; grit”). Compare Dutch gruit, Middle Low German gr?t, Middle High German gr?z, German Grütze (“grout”). Related also to English groats, grit.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??u?(?)l/
• Rhymes: -??l

Noun

gruel (countable and uncountable, plural gruels)

1. A thin, watery porridge, formerly eaten primarily by the poor and the ill.

   Coordinate terms: congee, oatmeal, porridge

Derived terms

• give someone his gruel

Related terms

• groat, groats
• grit, grits
• grout

Translations

Etymology 2

From the noun above.

Verb

gruel (third-person singular simple present gruels, present participle gruelling or grueling, simple past and past participle gruelled or grueled)

1. (transitive) To exhaust; use up; disable; to punish.

Derived terms

• gruelling

References

Anagrams

• Luger, gluer, luger