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Gritty comes from grit ("small hard granules"), which in turn derives, via Middle English, from an Old English word for "sand" or "gravel." Grit has been around since before the 12th century, but the first appearance of gritty in print in English was near the end of the 16th century, when it was used in the sense of "resembling or containing small hard granules." Grit entered American slang with the meaning "courage or persistence" in the early 19th century, and gritty followed suit with a corresponding "plucky" sense. By the 19th century's end, gritty was also being used to describe a literary style that was rough and coarse.
Examples of gritty in a Sentence
Fran Ruiz, Space.com, 15 Dec. 2025
One of the primary challenges for gritty detectives in most murder mysteries is determining the killer’s motive.
—Rick Burton, Sportico.com, 13 Dec. 2025
His beefier, grittier Bond led four more features, the last being 2021's No Time to Die.
—Randall Colburn, Entertainment Weekly, 12 Dec. 2025
Movies have conflicts between gritty human characters; late-stage capitalism has the son of a tech centibillionaire and the leader of a $400 billion international giant trading insults at Wall Street-analyst conventions.
—Steven Zeitchik, HollywoodReporter, 12 Dec. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Gritty.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gritty. Accessed 17 Dec. 2025.
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