different between hardiness vs grit

English

Etymology

hardy +? -ness

Noun

hardiness (countable and uncountable, plural hardinesses)

1. The quality of being hardy.
   1. The quality of being able to withstand fatigue and hardship; (of a plant) the quality of being resistant to cold or other environmental conditions.
      • 1642, John Milton, An apology against a pamphlet call’d A modest confutation of the animadversions upon the remonstrant against Smectymnuus, London: John Rothwell, p. 13,^[1]

        […] with usefull and generous labours preserving the bodies health, and hardinesse; to render lightsome, cleare, and not lumpish obedience to the minde,

      • 1726, Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, London: Benjamin Motte, Volume 2, Part 4, Chapter 8, p. 284,^[2]

        But the Houyhnhnms train up their Youth to Strength, Speed, and Hardiness, by exercising them in running Races up and down steep Hills, and over hard and stony Grounds […]

      • 1915, Nellie McClung, In Times Like These, Toronto: McLeod & Allen, Chapter 4,^[3]

        Wild wheat is small and hard, quite capable of looking after itself, but its heads contain only a few small kernels. Cultivated wheat has lost its hardiness and its self-reliance, but its heads are filled with large kernels which feed the nation.

   2. (obsolete) The quality of being bold in the face of risk or authority.

      Synonyms: hardihood, audacity, boldness, firmness, assurance

      • c. 1609, William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, Act III, Scene 6,^[4]

        Plenty and peace breeds cowards: hardness ever

        Of hardiness is mother.

      • 1702, Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, The History of the Rebellion, Oxford, 1732, Volume 1, Book 5, p. 153,^[5]

        […] they who were not yet grown to the hardiness of Avowing the contempt of the King […] would sooner have been checked, and recovered their Loyalty and Obedience.

      • 1856, John Ruskin, Modern Painters, Volume 3, Part 4, Chapter 6, § 6,^[6]

        […] for every sorrow that his heart turned from, he lost a consolation; for every fear which he dared not confront, he lost a portion of his hardiness; the unsceptred sweep of the storm-clouds, the fair freedom of glancing shower and flickering sunbeam, sank into sweet rectitudes and decent formalisms;

2. (obsolete) Hardship; fatigue.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, A View of the State of Ireland, in The Works of Mr. Edmund Spenser, London: Jacob Tonson, 1715, Volume 6, p. 1577,^[7]

     Yet sure they are very valiant, and hardy, for the most part great Indurers of Cold, Labour, Hunger, and all Hardiness […]

Translations

See also

• foolhardiness
• hardness

Anagrams

• shandries

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