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verb
Grit  v. i.  To give forth a grating sound, as sand under the feet; to grate; to grind. "The sanded floor that grits beneath the tread."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Grit" Quotes from Famous Books



... exact, I had a glass of beer in the 'General Gordon,' the most flourishing house in the neighbourhood, and as I was wandering rather aimlessly about I saw an uncommonly tempting gap in a hedgerow, and resolved to explore the meadow beyond. Soft grass is very grateful to the feet after the infernal grit strewn on suburban sidewalks, and after walking about for some time, I thought I should like to sit down on a bank and have a smoke. While I was getting out my pouch, I looked up in the direction of the houses, and as I looked I felt my breath caught back, and ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various

... a boy's life in the coal mines of Pennsylvania. Ben Burton, the hero, had a hard road to travel, but by grit and energy he advanced step by step until he found himself called upon to fill the position of chief engineer of the Kohinoor Coal Company. This is a book of extreme interest to every ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger

... like that uncompromising New England grit," exclaimed Miss Maxwell, "and so far, I don't regret one burden that Rebecca has borne or one sorrow that she has shared. Necessity has only made her brave; poverty has only made her daring and self-reliant. ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... was formerly and is now sometimes called,) in situation and aspect partly resembles "majestic Windsor." It has a similar "princely brow," being placed upon an abrupt elevation of a kind of natural cliff, forming the termination of a peninsular hill, the basis of which is red grit stone, but now covered with vegetable mould, well turfed by nature and art, and varied into terraces of different elevation. It has been the seat of the noble family of Manners for several generations; it claims the priority of every ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 564, September 1, 1832 • Various

... "for of course Clem Shocks never caught that crab, or some of the other fellows would have jumped on him? Didn't you all see how silly they looked when Buck was accusing Clem? They knew, as well as he did, that it wasn't so, but not a single fellow had the grit to ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... in my class at college, but I haven't seen him since. I'd be glad to see him again. A queer, dry fellow, but character and grit to his backbone." "I'd supposed he was younger," said Sherwen. "Anyway, he's comparatively new to the service. His rise is the more remarkable. At present, he's not only our quarantine representative, with full powers, but unofficially he acts, while on his roving commission, for the British, ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... a door under a round arch in an immense wall, which not far off ran against the embankment, forming an impassable angle; it was built of millstone grit of the colour of burnt almonds, like that used for the Paris reservoirs; here dwelt the nuns of ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... and sells them in bundles of half-a-dozen, but the buyer of a bundle only has two to show, and they're no good, haven't grit enough to sharpen a ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... smiled. "You are entitled to the water, of course; and I admire your grit. But those men are powerful. I have to depend on them a great deal. So you can see that I couldn't do anything without ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer

... and Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin's solid and liquid, all as aforesaid, established in a country where the people air not absolute Loo-naticks, I am Extra Double Darned with a Nip and Frizzle to the innermostest grit! Wheerfur—Theer!—I la'af! I Dew, ma'arm. I la'af!" And so he went, stamping and shaking his sides, along the platform all the way to ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... in the gulch sinking shafts on their best claims and taking out ore to be crushed in the spring. To some of these we furnished provisions to enable them to keep at work. Most of the roving, restless, fickle people had gone home in the fall and those who stayed were men of grit and determination. Some of them were well educated and intelligent. Every little while somebody would strike a small pocket, or a streak of very rich ore, which would help to make everybody else feel hopeful. And so the ...
— A Gold Hunter's Experience • Chalkley J. Hambleton

... came right down to the beach of coarse coral grit, rose undulatingly at a very gentle slope until within about three- quarters of a mile from the summit of the peak, when the slope became considerably steeper—probably a rise of one in five—to within a couple of hundred feet of the summit, when the slope took an angle ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood

... Monday. Last night I wrote to Levet.—We went to see the looking-glasses wrought. They come from Normandy in cast plates, perhaps the third of an inch thick. At Paris they are ground upon a marble table, by rubbing one plate upon another with grit between them. The various sands, of which there are said to be five, I could not learn. The handle, by which the upper glass is moved, has the form of a wheel, which may be moved in all directions. The plates are sent ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... heard her mother say, in many a sick-room gossip. "He's got to be flattered up, an' have some grit put into him." ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown

... the rolling wheels grit on the drive outside, and then there was murmuring conversation in the hallway, and then Kalora entered. His most dreadful suspicions were ten times confirmed. She wore no veil and no flowing gown. She was tightly incased in a gray cloth suit, and there was no mistaking the presence of a corset ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade

... only deeply interested her hearers, but momentarily exalted Prosper in their minds as the son of that hero. "Now you speak o' that, ma'am," said the ingenuous Wynbrook, "there's a good deal o' Prossy in that yarn o' his father's; same kind o' keerless grit! You remember, boys, that day the dam broke and he stood thar, the water up to his neck, heavin' logs in the break till he stopped it." Briefly, the evening, in spite of its initial culinary failure and its surprises, was a decided social ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... moving ever onward with unwavering march, that Lucretius is often wearisome and rough. He is too disdainful to care to mould the whole stuff of his poem to one quality. He is too truth-loving to condescend to rhetoric. The scoriae, the grit, the dross, the quartz, the gold, the jewels of his thought are hurried onward in one mighty lava-flood, that has the force to bear them all with equal ease—not altogether unlike that hurling torrent of the world painted by Tintoretto ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... raised my "grit," and I never flinched a bit, And my nerves they got as strong as steel or brass; And when I fired again I was sure that I had hit, For I saw the skulking ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... particle of stone bounding and clattering down the face of the cliff. "Of course not!" she said energetically. "I was just wondering, that's all. I haven't lost faith in Antha and I don't doubt but what she'll brace up before the summer is over. If we only knew a recipe for developing grit!" ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey

... a high state of cultivation with good buildings on it, at a high price, than to buy this exhausted piece of land with poor buildings or none at all, is a question for the individual to decide. It depends on your energy, grit, age, and how much money you have. It is much easier to take advantage of what the other fellow has done, than it is to build from the stump. You must bear in mind, however, that well kept land in a high state of cultivation seldom goes begging in the market. On the whole, if ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall

... war-whoop as he alighted, which was repeated again and again, as for that half moment he stood silent, a slim boyish figure, clad in light grey tweeds—a singular contrast to the stalwarts in gorgeous costumes who crowded about him. His young face paled to ashy whiteness, then with true British grit he extended his right hand and raised his black "billy-cock" hat with his left. At the same time he took one step forward. Then the war cries broke forth anew, deafening, savage, terrible cries, as one by ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson

... community at Brook Farm was instituted." At various times Charles Dana, Pratt, the young Brownson, Horace Sumner (a younger brother of Charles), George William Curtis, and his brother Burrill Curtis were there. The place was a kind of granary of true grit. People who found their own honesty too heavy a burden to carry successfully through the rough jostlings of society, flocked thither. "They were mostly individuals" says Hawthorne, "who had gone through such an experience as to disgust them with ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... Royal letter is dated the 25th day of September, 1512, it is stated to have been produced by the vicar before the Court of Master David Abercrummy on the 5th day of March, 1511. The explanation may be that it was found difficult to grit the augmentation out of the clutches of the Stirling Canons, even after the Bishop of Candida Casa (Whithorn) had decreed in the vicar's favour, and that the Royal authority had again to be invoked to give effect to it. However ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various

... of Denver grit, as though the yegg were being driven on into this madcap venture merely by a pride which would not allow him to show less ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand

... grit slip grin frog grip slat trot trill stiff slop spot blot prig sled still sniff drip slap slab scan scud twit step spin brag span crab stag glen drag slum stab crag trim skill skim slim glad crop drop ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett

... sa mony wise hath the name been spellit—is weel known to be ane house of grit antiquity; and it is said that King Milcolumb, or Malcolm, being the first of our Scottish princes quha removit across the Firth of Forth, did reside and occupy ane palace at Edinburgh, and had there ane valziant man, who did him man-service ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott

... than usual when, one afternoon, Helen rode through a belt of sand-hills on her way to the Charnock farm. Clouds of dust blew about the horse's feet, and now and then fine grit whistled past her head. She had her back to the boisterous wind, but she urged the horse until they got behind a grove of scrub poplars. Then she rolled up her veil and wiped her face before ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss

... me. He assured me, that while with him I was not in danger; that, to tell the truth, where we then were was not a very bad tract of country. For, said he, the brethren of Arkansas and Mississippi are not "clear grit." That a few weeks preceding, a man by the name of Jeffries, who had passed counterfeit money, they permitted to be taken and put to death. He had, it seems, got off about one thousand dollars of the spurious money on some river boatmen and traders; who returned when they found the ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green

... shouted the soldiers; I felt the fisherman step in, as a matter of fact he stepped in on to my toes; a dozen hands were on the gunwales: six soldier yells resounded, it seemed, in my very ears: there was the grit and rush of pebbles under the keel: a sudden lurch up of the bows, which brought the fairy lady's honey-scented lips to mine, and then the gentle lapping of deep blue waters ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold

... silence, he glanced up and saw that his fellow-fisherman was looking grave and thoughtful. At that instant the boy felt a quick snap at his line and he struck, the salmon whirling away instantly. It was a good fight, and the fish was full of grit, sending a curious thrumming sensation up the line that set every nerve aquiver. At last he got the fish stopped, and had just started to reel the big salmon in, when the apparition thrust its head out of the water not twenty feet from the boat. It ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... new to the show business; she said her folks live in Nantes. She worked here in a chocolate factory until she saw my 'ad' last week and joined my show. We gave her a rehearsal Monday and we put her on the bill next night. She's a good looker with plenty of grit, and is a winner with ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith

... at this, but I could see as he wasn't real grit, and he went off to the waggons. There was considerable talk when he got there, but as the Mormons must have known as I had been a scout, and had brought a lot of meat into the camp on the way, and as the chap that came across must have seen my rifle lying handy beside me, ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty

... report, Lieutenant. That youngster there," pointing to Ned, "is real grit. I seed the arrer strike him, and he a-pullin' of it out, runnin' towards 'em all the time. Jest as sure's yer live, yer can call Tom Pope a liar, if Jerry Vance didn't save that gal's life; 'cause, if we'd ever attacked the Injuns in camp, the first ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens

... blood rising from the Homestead ground. In my boyhood a Scottish University education had to be earned by the would-be student himself—earned by hard work, hard living, patience, perseverance and grit. That's the one quality I had—grit—and it served me well in all I wanted. I entered at St. Andrews—graduated, and came out an M.A. That helped to give me my first chance with the press. But I'm sure I'm boring you by all this ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... why people should stay in the city when the country was so much better. It had one draw-back, the country-road was not as smooth as the pavement. There was a cut in my left foot from stepping on a bit of glass, and the dust and grit of the road got into it and gave me some pain. I must have walked for three hours when I came to a burn that crossed the road. I sat on a stone and bathed my foot, and with it dangling in the water I ate a speldrin and a scone. On starting to walk, I found my foot worse, and had to go slow ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar

... to and Ed and I fixed up a stiff hooker of liquor and some hot tea and gave him a mouthful at a time. Just before daylight he rose on one elbow and lay there following us with his eyes, for he was too weak to talk. It seemed as if he was clean beat out and that his nerve was gone. What grit he had he had used up keeping away from ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith

... and put an end to further observation. the rok which makes its appearance on this part of the river is of a white colour fine grit and makes excellet whetstones; it lies in horizontal stratas and makes it's appearance in the bluffs of the river near their base. we indeavoured to take some fish but took only one small trout. Musquetoes uncommonly large ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... died in 1867 from a lingering illness contracted during his imprisonment. His son, Rene St. Jean, came home from war to find himself ruined. His father's shipping business existed on paper only. Having the grit and determination of his grandfather, he struggled along for almost ten years trying to get back on his feet. But those were dark years ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton

... and where he could, at the same time, attend the night schools of the Maryland Institute. This sounds much easier than it really was. To devote the evenings to study, after ten and often twelve hours of the hardest of all manual labor, required grit and moral ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson

... complement of himself; arbitrary as he was, unscrupulous as he was, but bolder and at the same time more wise. Knowing where he himself was lacking, he recognised the man who, when he himself should have the impulse to balk and hesitate, was of that hardier nature—"grit" the Americans call it—to take him hard by the head and force him over the fence which all the while he had been longing to be on the other side of. To a monarch of this character Bismarck was simply the ideal guide and support—the man to urge him on when hesitating, ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... that the fault must have lain with Jeffrey; the qualifications that Lord Cockburn admired so much were not likely to be to the taste of a man of Mr. Carlyle's grit. That did not prevent the most original of Mr. Napier's contributors from being one of the most ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley

... with fury. "Chin myself? Shucks! You're petered out, that's what ails you. You 'ain't got the grit and you've throwed up your tail. Lift her clean—don't try to saw goin' up, the teeth ain't set that way. Lift, take a bite, then leggo. ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... lent additional force to the belief that the enemy had been badly injured, and further impressed me with the conviction that we might have held on. Indeed, the battle of Chickamauga was somewhat like that of Stone River, victory resting with the side that had the grit to defer longest its relinquishment of ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... heard of the billeting of grit stones, Though I heard [sic] of the billeting of companies, Until the stones of Aileach was billeted On the horses of ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... which the topic of the lost boy, Harry, is introduced, and later on a boy who had been found by the natives of a Pacific island, comes into the story, being the person who found one of the ship's company who had been lost overboard in heavy weather. The latter had made his way ashore by sheer grit and determination (being a Sandwich Islander). They realise Harry is originally an English boy, and take him on board, and away from his savage masters who had been using ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston

... has got grit," Quest declared. "He sticks to it all the time. He'll win out with Laura in the end, you mark ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... by all the devils! I'll finish that bit of writing. A year ago I could no more have done it, under such circumstances, than have built a suspension bridge. To-day I will—just to show that I've some grit ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... in spite of the gilding of the setting sun. Stone lay everywhere: not the limestone of his own hills and cliffs, but grim, black-looking millstone-grit, which here and there formed craggy, forbidding outlines; and this did not increase his satisfaction with his ride, when he took up the rein and began to urge the cob on, to get ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn

... the bench, to which he was soon after elevated, was brilliant, because energetic, and successful, because he never permitted contingencies to thwart a predetermination, and because that coolness and grit which enabled him to whip a second sneering boy while he was yet a youth had become a settled trait of his character. It was during the sitting of his court, that the notorious Joe Smith was to be tried for some ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various

... did suspect there was mighty few things Vee was afraid of, but I never thought she had so much clear grit stowed away in her system. For to sail past Belcher the way he looked then took a heap of nerve, believe me. But before he can get that thick tongue of his limbered up we're outside, with Vee snuggled up mufflin' the giggles ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford

... in getting at my point! Emerson took me captive. For a time I lived and moved and had my intellectual being in him. I think I have always had a pretty soft shell, so to speak, hardly enough lime and grit in it, and at times I am aware that such is the fact to this day. Well, Emerson found my intellectual shell very plastic; I took the form of his mould at once, and could not get away from him; and, what is more, did not want to get away from him, did not see the need of getting away from ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus

... courtyard was grassless, a flooring of grit and loose stone, on which no impression could well be made by human foot. But Copplestone, carefully prospecting around and going a little way up the bank which lay between the tower and the moorland road, suddenly saw ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher

... destination, and while he withdrew his lantern from the door, he finished the conversation by excusing himself: "It's all right, my lads," he cheerfully said, "all charges have been settled as we brakemen do not collect toll from friends. It's the hoboes we are after to make them 'hit the grit'." and with that ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)

... still, small voice in his bosom having informed him authentically of a piece of news; that he was afraid of Alexander. The strange thing was that he was pleased to be afraid of him. He was proud of his son; he might be proud of him; the boy had character and grit, and knew ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Zenobia, "the Ditch didn't boom ez soon ez they kalkilated. And then the boys kept gettin' poorer and poorer, and Ned he kept gettin' poorer and poorer in everything but his hopefulness and grit. Then he looks around for more capital. And about this time, that coyote Harkins smelt suthin' nice up there, and he gits Ned to give him control of it, and he'll lend him his name and fix up a company. Soon ez he gets control, the first thing he does is to say that it ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte

... your left hand, Claude, and take hold of this rock. Your feet are both safely anchored on the ledge. Keep up your grit, and everything will be all right yet. Do you understand what I'm ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson

... man nearly dying from a bad septic wound of his right arm. I judged that he might possibly survive an amputation, but that the loss of the breadwinner's limb would have been just as bad, as far as his family was concerned, as the death of the patient. There was nothing to do but grit one's teeth and take chances. I remained with him throughout the night, and in the morning was glad to ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick

... him and the Yorkers at the door, he reached the stable. Mrs. Baker's voice rose above the general din, begging the Yorkers to spare her husband—to at least allow her to bind up the wound in his head before they took him away. But they merely laughed at her request. It made Enoch grit his teeth in rage, and pulling open the door of the stable he quickly entered and flung the captain's saddle upon the horse. Buckling the girth tightly he backed the steed out of the hovel and was astride it ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster

... of the mushrooms and give them a sharp but gentle twist, pressing them down at the same time, and they generally part from the bed without any trouble; then place them in the baskets, root-end down, so as to keep them perfectly clean and free from grit. Sometimes when several mushrooms are joined together in one root-stock and it is impossible to remove one without disturbing the whole, cut it over rather than pull it out. In the case of clumps of young mushrooms, where one can not ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer

... his own, whilst he scoffed at conventional elegance. Thus, he could not bear to hear the sound of his own steps, the grit of gravel; and therefore never willingly walked in the road, but in the grass, on mountains and in woods. His senses were acute, and he remarked that by night every dwelling-house gives out bad air, like ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... the best copal, or the varnishes for enamel manufactured by Mr. W. Urquhart, 327, Edgware Road, W.; or white coburg and white enamel varnish, ground and lump pumice-stone, or putty-powder, great care being taken in the selection of the pumice-stone, as the slightest particle of grit will spoil the surface; and rotten-stone, used either with ...
— French Polishing and Enamelling - A Practical Work of Instruction • Richard Bitmead

... and ran upon the woman of the house close by. She was looking greatly alarmed at the sudden coming of the enemy, but for all that Rod believed she would prove true grit. ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow

... cold wind over the snow of the moor; and now the long wading of that icy water might have ended upon the shores of Acheron. However, he was just about to start upon that passage—for the spirit of his race was up—when a dull grating sound, as of footsteps crunching grit, came to ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain: "Send not your foolish and feeble; send me your strong and your sane. Strong for the red rage of battle; sane, for I harry them sore; Send me men girt for the combat, men who are grit to the core; Swift as the panther in triumph, fierce as the bear in defeat, Sired of a bulldog parent, steeled in the furnace heat. Send me the best of your breeding, lend me your chosen ones; Them will I take to my bosom, them will I call my sons; Them will I gild with my treasure, them will ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service

... mind Gawn Hamilton's deserts, He drinks, and swears, and plays at carts, Yet has sae mony takin' arts, Wi' grit and sma', Frae God's ain priests the people's hearts ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... the incessant rattle of a machine-gun behind Pear-tree Gully; the distant ridges of the Sari Bahir range shimmering in the heat of noon-day; the angry "buzz" of the green and black flies disturbed from a jam-pot lid; the grit of sand in the mouth with every bite of food; the sullen dullness of the overworked, death-wearied troops; the hoarse dried-up and everlasting question: "Any water?"; the silence of the Hindus of the Pack-mule Corps; ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave

... them horsifers like I do; I ain't been in service all these years for nothin'. I tell yer, if there wasn't no danger they'd a sent one o' them blessed blacks to interprit instead o' you. They knows you've got the grit, so they sends you, and it's odds yer don't come back with ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld

... glanced at his companion's face as a light, flashing by, threw it into relief. It was set and stern, even a little haggard; but, too, there was something else there, something that appealed instantly to Jimmie Dale—a sort of bulldog grit that dominated it. ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... uninterpreted facts. The scientific approach to life is not enough. It does not cover all the ground. Men want to know what life spiritually means and they want to know that it "means intensely, and means good." Facts alone are like pieces of irritating grit that get into the oyster shell; the pearl of life is created by the interpretations ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick

... rate. I don't know as I know this fellow Ab.; he 's sort o' grown out o' my recollection; but I want to see. He knows me, I know. I got my hand on him once when he was a boy—about my age, and he ain't forgot that, I know. He was a blusterer; but he did n 't have real grit. He won't say nothin' to my face. But I must go alone. ...
— The Spectre In The Cart - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page

... catching, and after the departure of this first band there was a regular epidemic of departure at the Tocsin. Carter and Simpkins turned up at the office one afternoon very much in earnest about it all and persuaded that a little British grit was what was needed in Cuba, "to keep things humming." Simpkins recalled his old army days and the valour he had several times displayed when under the influence of liquor. He waved an old belt appertaining to those times, and would, ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith

... Tarnal I never did see yet! And if I hain't found the eighth wonder of Monarchical Creation, in finding Yew and Yewer fixins, solid and liquid, in a country where the people air not absolute Loo-naticks, I am Extra Double Darned with a nip and frizzle to the innermost grit! Wheerfore—Theer!—I la'af! I Dew, ma'arm. I la'af!" A calotype, or rather, literally, a speaking likeness, so true to the life as that, would be a trifle, we take it, beyond the mimetic powers and the keenly observant faculties even of a Boy whose senses had been wakened up by the ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent

... obtained with a voluntary imitation by the subject. Which is the quicker and briefer? (b) Apply a fairly strong auditory stimulus (a sudden noise) a fraction of a second before the tap on the tendon, and see whether the reflex response is reinforced, (c) Ask the subject to clench his fists or grit his teeth, and tap the tendon as he does so. Reinforcement? (d) Where is the reflex center for the patellar reflex, and whence ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... number of the space flyer's crew. She said ten. So far, four were dead, three alive, including myself, and the rest unaccounted for, I told her. She winced. In a moment, though, she pulled herself together with a grit which I could not deny, despite my disapproval of ...
— The Winged Men of Orcon - A Complete Novelette • David R. Sparks

... a steel and iron foundry call for high scientific attainments, grit, and the power to control large bodies of labour. In addition to these qualities others are required at Jamsheedpur to deal with the many physical and social problems which the rapid growth of a very heterogeneous ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol

... Alstyne was still staring up the staircase, but she came to herself at that. She had some grit in her, if she did look like ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... of the specimens embedded in it was difficult. A haul made on the 26th brought a prize for the geologist in the form of a lump of sandstone weighing 75 lbs., a piece of fossiliferous limestone, a fragment of striated shale, sandstone-grit, and some pebbles. Hauling in the dredge by hand was severe work, and on the 24th we used the Girling tractor-motor, which brought in 500 fathoms of line in thirty minutes, including stops. One stop was due to water having run over the friction gear and frozen. It was ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton

... and yet inaction, irritating inaction, was obligatory. Morning, noon, and night a perennial sand-storm blew; overhead, the sun grilled and scorched. Meals, edibles, and liquids were diluted with 10 per cent. of grit, and when perchance Tommy strove to strain his hardly-earned beer—to make a filter of a butter-cloth—phut! would come a gust of wind and bring the experiment to a melancholy conclusion. Poor Thomas's temper was much tried! He was, of necessity, an exceedingly ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... one of these apiece," he said. "You've proved you have the grit to use one; and maybe the dirty rats will think twice about rushing us if we each have a load of death ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst

... lecture; but he was so full of suppressed fun that he hugged his viol under his arm till one of the strings snapped. That gave the pitch, and we had a laughing chorus. All joined in, except Israel and Sarah. She pouted, and I do believe he grit his teeth." Here Aunt Clara gave herself up to the comic reminiscence, till her eyes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various

... and knees, after he recovered from his first astonishment, found he had only Eph to fight. Young Somers was all grit when aroused, nor was he lacking in muscle. But he was no match for Josh. There was a brief, heated contest. Then Eph, dizzy from a blow in the chest that winded him, staggered back. Owen swiftly vanished in the darkness, but Eph, when he got to his feet again, ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham

... fenced about; but the fence was for the most part buried under sand, and looked as if it were a rampart erected for the defense of this isolated cot. Some few hardy flowers had been planted there, but they were knee-deep in sand, and their petals were full of grit. One usually blew into that house with a pinch of sand, but how good it was ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... to work in right good earnest. They had all the grit of the old sea-dogs in them—how, I know not, except in this, that their lives had been given to the one mistress. The thought of a brush-up put dash and daring into them; they had the boats cleared, the water-barrels filled, ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton

... borne in upon him gradually that he was not a shouting success in business so far. The rosy dreams that had floated near all through his days of hard study had one by one left him, until his path was now leading through a murky gray way with little hope ahead. Nothing but sheer grit kept him at it, and he began to wonder how long he could stick it out ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill

... the first time I had seen the true coal in America, and I was much struck with its surprising analogy in mineral and fossil characters to that of Europe; ... the whole series resting on a coarse grit and conglomerate, containing quartz pebbles, very like our millstone grit, and often called by the Americans, as well as the English miners, the 'Farewell Rock,' because, when they have reached it in their borings, ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... the voice of Natas trembled with irrepressible passion, which, before he could proceed, broke from his heaving breast in a deep sob that thrilled the vast assembly like an electric shock, and made men clench their hands and grit their teeth, and wrung an answering sob from the breast of many a woman who knew but too well the meaning of those simple yet terrible words. Then Natas recovered his outward composure and went on; but now there was an angrier gleam in his eyes, ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith

... taking it off the fire, and a bit of butter rubbed on at the moment of serving. If accompanied with oyster sauce, strain off the liquor from the oysters, and throw them into cold water to take off the grit, while you simmer the liquor with a bit of mace and lemon peel. Then put in the oysters, stew them a few minutes, add a little cream, and some butter rubbed in a bit of flour. Let them boil up once, and throw the sauce over the steaks ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... Mr. Hamlin. "I like your grit, though I don't mind telling you it's the ONLY thing I like about you. Sit down. Well, I haven't seen Nell Montgomery for three years until I met her as your wife, at your house. She was surprised as I was, and frightened as I wasn't. She spent the whole interview in telling me the history ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... floor heavily beamed, and strong enough to withstand a fair sized shell. One or two were unconscious and all were bleeding more or less severely. I found I was the only person who was not struck. Goliath and Bill got little particles of grit in the face, and they looked black as chimney sweeps. Bill was cut across the ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill

... of waste from elevators is the wearing out of the piston packing, this being particularly troublesome in most of the Western cities, where the water supplied is to a large extent from turbid streams, carrying more or less fine sand or "grit," which cuts out the packing of the pistons very rapidly. The only practicable remedy for this is close inspection, to see that the pistons do not allow water to pass, a fact that can readily be determined from the noise made in the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various

... Rocks hemmed it in; big breakers walled it. The sou'-wester roared through the gap. I rode down among loose stones and water-worn channels in the solid grit very carefully. But the man in brown had torn over the wild path with reckless haste, zigzagging madly, and was now on the little three-cornered patch of beach, undressing himself with a sort of careless glee, and flinging his clothes down anyhow on the shingle beside him. Something about the ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... have omitted to say, that as the sore palate findeth grit, so an uneasy consciousness heareth innuendoes. The next day Mr. Farebrother, parting from Lydgate in the street, supposed that they should meet at Vincy's in the evening. Lydgate answered curtly, no—he had work to do—he must give up going ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... arm in Maskull's, and they walked away into the night. For a mile or more they skirted the edge of the precipice. The wind was searching, and drove grit into their faces. Through the rifts of the clouds, stars, faint and brilliant, appeared. Maskull saw no familiar constellations. He wondered if the sun of earth was visible, and if so ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay

... taken,' said he. 'Go to Amersham tomorrow, or go to the devil if you prefer—I wash my hands of you and the whole transaction. No, you don't find me putting my head in between Romaine and a client! A good man of business, sir, but hard as millstone grit. I might get the sack, and I shouldn't wonder! But, it's a pity, too,' he added, and sighed, shook his head, and took his ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Mrs. Dale's bodily health was not on its normal level of excellence, Norah showed magnificent grit and altogether proved worth her ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... any exigency, as the daughter of a thousand years of bound-feet Chinese women. While she tilted on, the nice young fellow with her swept forward with one stride to her three on the wide soles and low heels of nature-last boots, and kept himself from out-walking her by a devotion that made him grit his teeth. Probably she was wiser and better and brighter than he, but she didn't look it; and I, who voted to give her the vote the other day, had my misgivings. I think I shall satisfy myself for the next five ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells

... as onything. That sup o' brandy has put some grit in me. Give me some more. Thank tha ... Does tha ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... for a better one, would you not? You would even spend large sums of money to secure a better machine to take the place of the poor one. But if your body is imperfect, inefficient, weak, rusty and clogged up with grit, dirt and all the waste products due to the "wear" in the bodily structures, you seem nevertheless entirely satisfied. You go on from day to day and from year to year without thinking of the possibility of getting a better physical equipment. But ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden

... if his new solicitude irritated her, and a quiver of pain—or was it amusement?—crossed her lips. "It isn't the first time I've had to grit my teeth and bear things—but it's getting worse instead of better all the time, and I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to help me up the hill. I was waiting until I thought I could manage it ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow

... and trials and poverty of the real people. He called himself a Conservative, it is true, while I called myself a Radical; but, except in name, I could not see much difference between our democratic tendencies. Runciman appeared to me a most earnest and able thinker, full of North-country grit, ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... waist-deep on the floor of the engine room, oil and coal dust mixing with the water and making every one filthy, some men clinging to the iron ladder way and passing full buckets up long after their muscles had ceased to work naturally, their grit and spirit keeping them going. I did admire the weaker people, especially those who were unhardened by the months of physical training of the voyage ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans

... where ginger-beer and such things were sold. The noise was deafening; the wind stirred the sand curiously so that it blew up and about in little wreaths and spirals. Everything and everybody seemed to be covered with the grit of this fine small sand; it was in Maggie's eyes, nose, ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... of his sire's calling, was at least of a good old Newcastle border stock of fine "grit" and sturdily independent. He was proud of his stock, and he has often lamented, not merely in print, but to myself, how people would confound him with mere Fosters. "Now we," he would say vehemently, "are ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald

... horses, at least," said she, "to drag us. Magnificent creatures, too. But nothing pays for having one's mouth and eyes full of grit." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... and I'll bet it took as much grit for her to do it as for one of us to face a battery. It don't seem much to tell of, but I wish I may be hit if it wasn't a right down dutiful and clever thing to see done. When the old lady took her off at the bottom, with a good motherly hug, I found myself huggin' my rifle like a fool, but ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott

... are corn and rice meal. If a sample of the flour be thrown on the surface of a glassful of water, the corn and rice, being heavier, will sink; grit and sand may be detected in the same way. If the flour has been adulterated with mineral substances it may be shown by burning a portion down to an ash; the ash of pure flour should not exceed two per cent of the total amount; if ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various

... the woman for her eternal grit. She won't give up for a minute. She is going to run her house just so if she has to train up a million girls and lose them all. Half the time she has to do her own work, but I'll bet that when she has the luncheon ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch

... Florida then, will we?" asked Nick. "My goodness; sometimes, when we were sticking in those mud creeks, it seemed to me that Florida must be just six thousand miles away. And we're going to make it after all? Well, that's what comes of push and grit. You fellers would have laid down long ago, only for my keeping everlastingly at it. But you're improving, I admit that; and I've got hopes that in time you'll do ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel

... not for ever would he be able to go on as so far he had. He told himself that if it were possible to stamp on desire now it would continue to be possible; that if one were not put into the world to get what one wanted at least it should be possible to grit the teeth on the fact. It was childish enough to cry for the moon—it was pitiable to hanker after its reflection in a cesspool. Chastity to Ishmael, by the nature of his training and his circumstances, was a vital thing; the ever-present miseries of home resulting ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... this, you blamed coyote," said Blunt, "and be quick. You've got about as much grit as a chipmunk, and if you don't talk we'll show you a trick or two that will make ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish

... shells starting wide open. After they are done, they should be taken from the shells, washed thoroughly in their own water, and put in a stewing pan. The water should then be strained through a cloth, so as to get out all the grit; the clams should be simmered in it ten or fifteen minutes; a little thickening of flour and water added; half a dozen slices of toasted bread or cracker; and pepper, vinegar and butter to your taste. Salt is ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child

... worn to the gums by the mastication of food in which sand has been mingled in immoderate proportion. All his life has been spent on the verge of the sea. He has never known smooth food. Before he left his mother's breast grit was on his lips, for in her sleep she snoodled naked in the sand. Hers was the age of bark rugs or none, and was ever lord of the beach who shared with his lady so rare ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... Jeremy's conversion to the big idea took place on the way across the desert to Jerusalem—a journey that took us a week on camel-back—a rowdy, hot journey with the stifling simoom blowing grit into our followers' throats, who sang and argued alternately nevertheless. For, besides our old Ali Baba and his sixteen sons and grandsons, there were Jeremy's ten pickups from Arabia's byways, whom he couldn't leave behind because they knew ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy

... back so different from all she had hoped. Whole families would bless the England which had made their member manly, upright, better for his sojourn there, fitted to earn a living honourably, and possessed of grit to strive to do his best. And he, the student, stirred, by memories of kindness in the West, would win those with whom he comes in contact to a friendlier feeling for the British race. The seditionist would ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... demand was renewed with rising anger and with menaces; yet never could those Puritans of the Bay be scared into making a solitary move of any kind toward compliance with it. David with his sling daring Goliath in armor is an insufficient figure of that nerve, that transcendent grit, that superb gallantry. Where will you look for its parallel? I certainly do not ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... more. It was the Express that managed, while elaborately abstaining from improper comment upon a matter sub judice, to feed and support the general conviction of young Ormiston's innocence, and thereby win for itself, though a "Grit" paper, wide reading in that hotbed of Toryism, Moneida Reservation, while the Conservative Mercury, with its reckless sympathy for an old party name, made itself criminally liable by reviewing cases of ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

... floor of the house was scarcely two yards broad, but the building widened out very much, following the shape of the cave. The materials used in the construction were stone and mud or, rather, reddish grit; and smaller stones had been put between larger ones in an irregular way. The walls were only five or six inches thick and were plastered with mud. An upright pole supported the ceiling, which was rather pretty, consisting of reeds ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... the young inventor, but those who do not may be interested it hearing that he is a young American lad, full of grit and ginger, who lives with his aged father in the town of Shopton, in New York State. Our hero was first introduced to the public in the book, "Tom Swift ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton



Words linked to "Grit" :   gumption, colloquialism, gritty, sandstone, coat, surface, sand, guts



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