different between grit vs tenacity

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

tenac(ious) +? -ity, from Middle French ténacité, from Latin ten?cit?s.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /t??næs.?.ti/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /t??næs?ti/
• Hyphenation: tena?city

Noun

tenacity (countable and uncountable, plural tenacities)

1. The quality or state of being tenacious, or persistence of purpose; tenaciousness.
   • 2009, Jorge Cham, PHD Comics: Softball: younger and faster:

     — Our opponents may be younger, faster and less out of shape than we are, but we have something they’ll never have!

     — Tenure?

     — Tenacity!

2. The quality of bodies which keeps them from parting without considerable force, as distinguished from brittleness, fragility, mobility, etc.
3. The effect of this attraction, cohesiveness.
4. The quality of bodies which makes them adhere to other bodies; adhesiveness, viscosity.
5. (physics) The greatest longitudinal stress a substance can bear without tearing asunder, usually expressed with reference to a unit area of the cross section of the substance, as the number of pounds per square inch, or kilograms per square centimeter, necessary to produce rupture.

Synonyms

• (state of being tenacious): tenaciousness, determination, persistency, retentiveness, stubbornness
• (quality keeping bodies together): cohesiveness
• (quality making bodies adhere): adhesiveness, viscosity

Antonyms

• (quality keeping bodies together): brittleness, fragility, mobility

Related terms

• tenacious
• tenaciously

Translations