Mettle vs Grit - What's the difference?
mettle | grit | Related terms |
A quality of endurance and courage.
* 360 BCE , , Book VIII.
* 1599 , '', act iv, scene 8 (''First Folio ed.)
* 2001 , Harry J. Alexandrowicz, Testing your Mettle: Tough Problems and Real-world Solutions for Middle and High School Teachers , page xiii
Good temperament and character.
* 1868 , , Bleak House
(obsolete) Metal; a metallic substance.
* 1837 , Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy , page 78
Collection of hard small materials, such as dirt, ground stone, debris from sandblasting or other such grinding, swarf from metalworking.
Inedible particles in food.
Firmness of mind; invincible spirit; unyielding courage or fearlessness; fortitude.
A measure of relative coarseness of an abrasive material such as sandpaper.
(geology) A hard, coarse-grained siliceous sandstone; gritstone. Also, to a finer sharp-grained sandstone, e.g. grindstone grit .
To clench, particularly in reaction to pain or anger; apparently only appears in gritting one's teeth .
To cover with grit .
To give forth a grating sound, like sand under the feet; to grate; to grind.
* Goldsmith
(usually in plural) husked]] but unground [[oat, oats
(usually in plural) coarsely ground corn or hominy used as porridge
As nouns the difference between mettle and grit
is that mettle is a quality of endurance and courage while grit is collection of hard small materials, such as dirt, ground stone, debris from sandblasting or other such grinding, swarf from metalworking.As a verb grit is
to clench, particularly in reaction to pain or anger; apparently only appears in gritting one's teeth.As an adjective Grit is
of or belonging to the Liberal Party of Canada.mettle
English
Noun
(-)- In the succeeding generation rulers will be appointed who have lost the guardian power of testing the metal of your different races, which, like Hesiod's, are of gold and silver and brass and iron.
- By this Day and this Light, the fellow ha's mettell enough in his belly.
- Please read on and discover the issues in education that test the mettle of those who experience this world every day.
- The arrival of this unexpected heir soon taking wind in the court, still makes good for the Sol, and keeps the court upon its mettle .
- They have neither gold nor silver of their own, wine nor oyl, or scarce any corn growing in those United Provinces, little or no wood, tin, lead, iron, silk, wooll, any stuff almost, or mettle ; and yet Hungary, Transilvania, that brag of their mines, fertile England, cannot compare with them.
Synonyms
* (quality of endurance and courage) courage, heart, spiritgrit
English
Etymology 1
With early modern vowel shortening, from (etyl) grete, griet, from (etyl) ‘lump’).Noun
(-)- The flower beds were white with grit from sand blasting the flagstone walkways.
- It tastes like grit from nutshells in these cookies.
- That kid with the cast on his arm has the grit to play dodgeball.
- I need a sheet of 100 grit sandpaper.
Derived terms
* *See also
* debris * mortar and pestle * swarfVerb
- We had no choice but to grit our teeth and get on with it.
- He has a sleeping disorder and grits his teeth.
- The sanded floor that grits beneath the tread.
