nitty-grittyとは 意味・読み方・使い方

別の表記

• knitty-gritty, nitty gritty

語源

Of 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.

An urban legend links the origin of the word to the debris remaining in the holds of slave ships after the slaves had been disembarked, but there is no evidence for this. The word is not attested early enough to have been associated with slavery.

発音

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˌnɪtiˈɡɹɪti/
• (General American) IPA: /ˈnɪtiˈɡɹɪti/, [-ɾi-]
• 韻: -ɪti
• ハイフネーション: nit‧ty-grit‧ty

名詞

nitty-gritty (uncountable)

1. (originally US, colloquial, also attributively) The core or essence of something; the gist.

   Synonyms: brass tacks, nuts and bolts; see also Thesaurus:gist

   He gave a short summary without getting into the nitty-gritty of the problem.

派生語

• nitty

形容詞

nitty-gritty (comparative more nitty-gritty, superlative most nitty-gritty)

1. (colloquial) Dealing with something in great depth.
   • 1976, United States. National Commission on Arthritis and Related Musculoskeletal Diseases, Arthritis - Out of the Maze

     We deal with them at a very, very nitty gritty level, and we deal with the results of years and years of problems that they've had in the past.

参照

Further reading

• nitty-gritty (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia