Meaning
To press your teeth together firmly, or figuratively to summon resolve and force yourself to face something painful, difficult, or unpleasant. It implies endurance without complaint rather than aggression. A related form, doing something through gritted teeth, stresses doing a hated thing anyway, with reluctance or suppressed anger. Neutral register; conveys hard-won endurance rather than complaint. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The expression rests on the physical act of pressing or grinding the teeth together against pain, strain, or fury. The verb is the documented key: etymonline records grit as a verb meaning to make a grating sound from 1762 and to grate or grind from 1797, a grinding sense that English had earlier carried by gnash and grind (as in the biblical gnashing of teeth). Citations collected on Wiktionary show literal clenching senses alongside the figurative one of determined endurance, for which its earliest dated quotation is from 1964; that figurative use is surely older in speech, but a documented first appearance is lacking. A circulating claim that an older idiom to set one's teeth was the direct ancestor is not supported by the sources consulted.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- grit one's teeth
- gritting one's teeth
- through gritted teeth
Usage Examples
- Dreading the audit, Marta gritted her teeth and opened the folder of receipts.
- You just have to grit your teeth through the first winter; the training gets easier after that.
- He paid the fine through gritted teeth and refused to argue with the clerk.