Meaning
Contrary to someone's natural inclination, or to the prevailing tendency of a situation, group, or material. Actions, statements, and changes can all go this way, and the phrase always implies resistance or friction. Neutral in register and at home in both literal craft contexts (wood, meat, hair) and figurative argument. Regional use: General English.
Origin
Etymonline explains the image as carpentry - planing timber across instead of along its fibers makes the wood tear rather than lie smooth - dating the wood-fiber sense of 'grain' to the 1560s and the phrase itself to 1650. The earliest figurative use recorded by The Phrase Finder is earlier: Sicinius in Shakespeare's Coriolanus (1607), 'made you against the grain to voice him consul', followed by Thomas Hubbert's 'O this goes against the grain' in 1650. The Phrase Finder cautions, however, that none of the earliest uses mention wood and that 'grain' meaning inclination is recorded only after Shakespeare, so whether he had timber in mind is genuinely hard to say; the carpentry reading may be a later rationalisation of the metaphor.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- be against the grain
- cut against the grain
- go against the grain
- go against the natural grain
Usage Examples
- Paying for software he could have built himself went against the grain for Marcus, but the deadline left no choice.
- The agency's improvised style cuts against the grain of the formal diplomatic culture it serves.
- It goes against the grain for her to accept help without offering something in return.