Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Composed of or containing gristle.
  • adjective Resembling gristle.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Consisting of gristle; like gristle; cartilaginous: as, the gristly rays of fins connected by membranes; the gristly caps or epiphyses of growing bones.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective (Anat.) Consisting of, or containing, gristle; like gristle; cartilaginous.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of, pertaining to, or containing gristle

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective difficult to chew

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The Distant Hours, by Kate Morton (Mantle, £16.99) Kate Morton's trick, performed here and in previous bestsellers such as The Forgotten Garden, is to mash together several classic novels likely to have been loved as children by her target readership – I Capture the Castle, The Secret Garden, Jane Eyre, and so on – then force the resulting sludge through a sieve to remove any gristly bits.

    Thrillers – review John O'Connell 2010

  • In England a ham sandwich is a cold, pink punch in the face, an angry thing marbled with gristly neglect.

    Why we must savour the rare English delicacy that is Jack Wilshere Barney Ronay 2010

  • The taco was a little tough and gristly, but everything was improved by the addition of a generous spoonful of tangy, thin red sauce and a chunkier salsa verde, both served icy-cold.

    Last Night « PubliCola 2010

  • Arlo wondered if his wife noticed the gristly lumps that had formed along the old scar on Shadow's neck, where the footpad of Cody's dirt bike had caught her.

    Deer Collage Carol Reid 2011

  • If there is even a suspicion of truth in tributes which have, to the last eulogist, declared the sublime, apple-tumescing appeal of a plump, lustful, self-destructive alcoholic, whose excesses make top femme fatale Angelina Jolie look like a much tattooed Milly-Molly-Mandy, you have to wonder if blanched, gristly diet victims along Renée Zellweger's lines really represent any kind of shared ideal.

    The strange case of Liz Taylor as a 'real woman' role model | Catherine Bennett 2011

  • Mechanized trawlers have been killing the adults for a while now, their shells washed ashore providing the gristly evidence.

    Bharati Chaturvedi: Turning People Turtles in East India Bharati Chaturvedi 2011

  • Long nights of Pierrot locked inside invisible boxes, trapped and wailing soundlessly, of Pierrot suspended from invisible trees by invisible ropes, of Pierrot ascending stairs and descending stairs, of Pierrot gesturing the gristly aftermath of a death by Russian Roulette.

    The Clown Show Robert Kloss 2011

  • Plus ... there're no fiddly, gristly bits to deal with.

    The Taming of the 'Fu Sarah 2009

  • Are they greasy, gristly, or the best pasties in Plymouth?

    Budget eats in Plymouth 2011

  • It's a nice, gristly, Germanic word, contrasting with the limitless space evoked by the latinate "America".

    Poem of the week: Pier by Vona Groarke 2010

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