Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Informal The specific or practical details; the heart of a matter.
Wiktionary
WordNet 3.0
- n. the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience
Etymologies
- Uncertain, said to have been used at first by black jazz musicians, perhaps ultimately from reduplication nit and grits (finely ground corn), from Old English grytt, grytta ("coarse meal"). (Wiktionary)
- Origin unknown. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Linsey is a bright-eyed, 25-year-old blonde bombshell with a bubbly personality and some nitty-gritty pipes.”
The Huffington Post: Michael Bialas: Hot Duo Steel Magnolia Have A Three-Way... Conversation
“Whether this will ever translate to a real, nitty-gritty acceptance of these views on Amazon or Asimov's, however, remains to be seen.”
“Kenji Kamiyama succeeds in all the ways that Oshii fails: characterization, dialogue, depicting the nitty-gritty lived experience of the future.”
MIND MELD: Anime Film Favorites (+ The Top 14 Anime Films of All Time!)
“I even help out our fisherman and do the nitty-gritty work.”
“They were all waiting anxiously to hear the nitty-gritty details, as if throwing up your guts was a major accomplishment.”
“Well, expect a bit of a lull as lawyers and accountants sink their teeth into the nitty-gritty details of these terms, some of which kept changing until the final hour.”
The Wall Street Journal: Week Ahead: A Likely Calm Before Deals Resume
“The book argued that to win a war civilian leaders sometimes had to get really involved in the nitty-gritty details of how to conduct it.”
“There is an example of how we might investigate this ‘nitty-gritty’.”
See No Evil…… (at least until the next financial year) « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG
“Between 1929 and 1950, the likes of Humphrey Jennings and John Grierson held a mirror up to the nation and made films including Coal Face and Listen To Britain that took up the nitty-gritty of public life in a way that was unheard of in the first half of the 20th century.”
“Oh yes, work: the writers 'conference afforded me (and the attendees, I hope) a great six-hour discussion with Mary Lee Donovan, Debbie Kovacs, Alison Morris, Nancy Werlin and Martin Sandler about contemporary children's publishing, from the nitty-gritty of getting an agent to larger questions about the future of the market.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘nitty-gritty’.
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Mandles, Candles for Men
candles with a "manly" scent
a1 steak sauce, baseball glove, grillin' out, campfire, pigskin, bowling alley, musty locker room, chuck norris sweat, urinal deodorizer, bait shop, wet dog, hardware store and 210 more...
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Reduples
Go for it, brothers and sisters! I personally have been suffering long for lack of an open reduplicatives list
happy clappy, bribble-brabble, diddle-daddle, hugger-mugger, kikiriki, Bora-Bora, mahi-mahi, jingle-jangle, knick-knack paddy..., chit-chat, bon-bon, clapperclaw and 292 more...
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Goatboy's list
Goatboy's Word Emporium
juggernaut, abhor, discombobulate, fankle, oose, orchid, schadenfreude, doppleganger, garibaldi, coquette, arabesque, meme and 19 more...
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gists
words about central ideas and actions
gist, nub, sense, meat, core, essence, heart, crux, pith, marrow, kernel, quintessence and 35 more...
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Idioms or Phrases or "expressions"
like nobody's bui..., soap up, plug away, country club, horse whisperer, cease and desist, eye of the beholder, small-claims court, nut job, heebie-jeebies, hole in the wall, black-tie and 101 more...
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spondee!
rat-trap, sad-sack, dingbat, flapjack, mad max, ho hum, dilly-dally, flim flam, hugger-mugger, nitty-gritty, humdrum, pish posh and 10 more...
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Stuffie: Get to the Point
Things you go or get to--with "the" (not to be confused with jennarenn's "get" stuffie. :-)
bone, contrary, fore, point, nines, full, gills, highest degree, nth degree, truth, hilt, minute and 23 more...
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stompin' and pickin'
clementine, wabash cannonball, chicory, fisticuffs, flapjacks, grifter, hoedown, honky tonk, tupelo, tarnation, trestle, sorghum and 44 more...
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random
raving beauties, properly gorgeous, the irrefutable t..., terribly cocky, throw pitying gla..., fantastically att..., spectacularly unp..., run rampart, criminy, lickety-split, meltdown, perish the thought and 22 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for nitty-gritty.
goatboy Of unknown origin although some have suggested that it refers to the 'debris' left in the bottom of a slave ship at the end of a voyage. Jan 24, 2008