nitty-gritty
The core or essence of somethingThe core or essence of something; the gist.
Translations
4 languagesMeaning
1 senses(also, attributive, colloquial, uncountable)The core or essence of something; the gist.
He gave a short summary without getting into the nitty-gritty of the problem.
Wesentliche
- the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience
Origin
Of uncertain origin; said to have been first used by black jazz musicians from the UnitedOf uncertain origin; said to have been first used by black jazz musicians from the United States, the word is perhaps a reduplication of gritty (“resembling grit”) (ultimately from Proto-Germanic *greutą (“grit”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrewd-) with alteration of the first syllable.
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Synonyms
31 synonymsWord family
1 related wordsLessons for this word
1 lessons- A1Countable and uncountable nouns — Because it can be uncountable
See also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.