Gritty means showing courage and determination in the face of difficulty. When someone plays through pain to help their team win, works through exhaustion to finish a project, or keeps trying after repeated failures, they're showing a gritty attitude. A gritty person doesn't quit when things get hard.

Think of sandpaper: grit is those rough particles that do the grinding work. A gritty person has that same toughness. When a basketball team comes back from being down twenty points, commentators call it a gritty performance. When a student struggles with fractions for weeks but keeps practicing until they finally understand, that's grit in action.

The word can also describe something rough or coarse in texture. A beach feels gritty because of the sand between your toes. Unwashed spinach might taste gritty because of bits of dirt. You might find gritty dust on an old bookshelf.

In stories and movies, gritty sometimes describes realistic, tough situations rather than cheerful, simplified ones. A gritty western shows the real hardships of frontier life. The grittiest stories don't shy away from showing how difficult things actually were.