grit

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   small hard particles; courage and resolve in the face of hardship

   It took real grit to finish the race on an injured ankle.

From Old English greot ('sand, dust, gravel'), from Proto-Germanic *greutą ('crushed particles'), from a Proto-Indo-European root *ghreu- ('to rub, grind'). The figurative sense 'courage' is 19th-century American.

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