Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The specific or practical details; the heart of a matter.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun colloquial The
essence orcore of something; thedetails .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Between 1929 and 1950, the likes of Humphrey Jennings and John Grierson held a mirror up to the nation and made films including Coal Face and Listen To Britain that took up the nitty-gritty of public life in a way that was unheard of in the first half of the 20th century.
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Oh yes, work: the writers 'conference afforded me (and the attendees, I hope) a great six-hour discussion with Mary Lee Donovan, Debbie Kovacs, Alison Morris, Nancy Werlin and Martin Sandler about contemporary children's publishing, from the nitty-gritty of getting an agent to larger questions about the future of the market.
From Cape Cod to Christmas Roger Sutton 2009
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They were all waiting anxiously to hear the nitty-gritty details, as if throwing up your guts was a major accomplishment.
Raven V.C Andrews 2011
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There is an example of how we might investigate this ‘nitty-gritty’.
See No Evil…… (at least until the next financial year) « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2010
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Well, expect a bit of a lull as lawyers and accountants sink their teeth into the nitty-gritty details of these terms, some of which kept changing until the final hour.
Week Ahead: A Likely Calm Before Deals Resume Deals India Staff 2011
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I even help out our fisherman and do the nitty-gritty work.
Olivia V.C.Andrews 2011
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Whether this will ever translate to a real, nitty-gritty acceptance of these views on Amazon or Asimov's, however, remains to be seen.
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Linsey is a bright-eyed, 25-year-old blonde bombshell with a bubbly personality and some nitty-gritty pipes.
Michael Bialas: Hot Duo Steel Magnolia Have A Three-Way... Conversation Michael Bialas 2011
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Kenji Kamiyama succeeds in all the ways that Oshii fails: characterization, dialogue, depicting the nitty-gritty lived experience of the future.
MIND MELD: Anime Film Favorites (+ The Top 14 Anime Films of All Time!) 2010
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The book argued that to win a war civilian leaders sometimes had to get really involved in the nitty-gritty details of how to conduct it.
The Longest War Peter L. Bergen 2011
goatboy commented on the word nitty-gritty
Of unknown origin although some have suggested that it refers to the 'debris' left in the bottom of a slave ship at the end of a voyage.
January 24, 2008