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Showing results for nitty. Search instead for nittiest.

nitty

American  
[nit-ee] / ˈnɪt i /

adjective

nittier, nittiest
  1. full of nits.


nitty 1 British  
/ ˈnɪtɪ /

adjective

  1. infested with nits

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

nitty 2 British  
/ ˈnɪtɪ /

adjective

  1. informal foolish; stupid

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of nitty

First recorded in 1560–70; nit 1 + -y 1


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:

And not to the exclusion of bettering their lives by paying attention to the nitty and the gritty, like making housing and higher education more readily available and, yes, fixing potholes.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 8, 2026

They were just sort of in a, in a very nitty gritty way, trying to solve the problems that were put in front of them.

From Scientific American ● Oct. 12, 2023

Seven Fifty gets into the nitty gritty of the production, acknowledging that "alongside a growing range of proprietary technologies, beverage manufacturers employ two primary methods for alcohol removal: reverse osmosis and vacuum distillation."

From Salon ● Nov. 11, 2022

Initially, the focus was on the “really nitty gritty things, like food, water, basic recovery supplies.”

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 14, 2022

He has need o' a clean pow that ca's his neighbour nitty now.

From The Proverbs of Scotland by Alexander Hislop

If that were still a really strong issue, I don't think I could have gone into nittier, grittier aspects of anything underneath it.

From Salon ● Aug. 18, 2022

“She really gets into the nittiest nitty-gritty details, and with an understanding of how important they are to the outcomes.”

From New York Times ● Nov. 17, 2022

But the primary reason is much more practical: Throughout history, and still in many countries throughout the world, the left hand is reserved for the nittiest and grittiest of bathroom duties.

From Salon ● Aug. 16, 2021

Both books drill down into the nittiest of gritty details.

From Washington Post ● Oct. 20, 2015

On Capitol Hill, North Carolina's Democratic Senator Sam Ervin denounced the experiment as "nitpicking of the nittiest kind."

From Time Magazine Archive

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