nitty-gritty

English

Etymology

Uncertain, said to have been used at first by black jazz musicians, perhaps ultimately from reduplication nit and grits (finely ground corn), from Old English grytt, grytta (“coarse meal”).

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /ˌnɪtiˈɡrɪti/
Audio (US) (file)

Noun

nitty-gritty (uncountable)

(colloquial) The essence or core of something; the details.
He gave a short summary without getting into the nitty-gritty of the problem.

Synonyms

brass tacks
details
nuts and bolts
See also Thesaurus:gist

Derived terms

nitty

Translations

essence or core of something

German: Wesentliche n, Kern (de) m
Icelandic: kjarni (is) m, aðalatriði (is) n, grundvallar-
Persian: اصول‎ (fa) (osul)

Russian: суть (ru) (sutʹ)
Turkish: asıl mesele (tr), işin gerçek yüzü/içyüzü, konunun özü (tr)

References

“nitty-gritty” (US) / “nitty-gritty” (UK) in Oxford Dictionaries, Oxford University Press.