gristly
Americanadjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of gristly
A Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400; see origin at gristle, -y 1
Explanation
Gristly means rubbery or full of cartilage. The hardest part of your trip to rural China might be graciously accepting and attempting to chew the gristly meat your hosts offer you. The Old English word that spawned gristly is gristle, literally meaning "cartilage." When meat in particular is hard to chew, it's gristly. This adjective sounds like grisly (no t), which describes something that is horrifying. Although it can also be horrifying, save gristly to describe that chewy mystery meat you try and choke down to be polite.
Vocabulary lists containing gristly
Commonly Confused Words, List 3
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Commonly Confused Words, List 5
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Commonly Confused Words, List 11
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Yet with a little sugar, and a simmering dembow beat, Towers’ gristly timbre elasticized into a warm, caramelized tone all his own.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 20, 2023
Those meats tend to be gristly or over-seasoned to mask the gnarly cut.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 27, 2019
Nothing is more unsatisfactory than handing your dog a tasty treat only to have it disappear down their gullet without even a moment of savoring the jus clinging to that succulent gristly end of beef.
From Salon ● Apr. 7, 2019
Here he started scratchily, but by the end seemed to have become weirdly ubiquitous, a gristly substance spread across the whole of that Leicester backline.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 14, 2017
Too rancid and gristly even for the crows, it was crawling with maggots.
From "Pax" by Sara Pennypacker
And it had something beautiful too, Brazil’s team of all the No 10s broken like a butterfly on a wheel by the gristlier, more industrial football of Italy’s champions-in-waiting.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 8, 2020
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
