Courage, resolution. Clear Grit. The same carried to a high point.

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1825.  Old Bob, I mean; proper feller, he was, too; ’cute enough, I tell you! sharp ’s a razor—clear grit; one o’ them air half blooded Mohawks, ’od rot ’em!—John Neal, ‘Brother Jonathan,’ iii. 386. (N.E.D.)

2

1834.  These Dutch minxes are clear pepper-pots for grit.—D. P. Thompson, ‘Adventures of Timothy Peacock,’ p. 91.

3

1834.  She [mother] says before I was a week old I showed that I was real grit, and could kick and scream two hours upon the stretch, and not seem to be the least bit tired that ever was.—Seba Smith, ‘Major Jack Downing,’ p. 24.

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1839.  The clan are not all of the same grit.—‘History of Virgil A. Stewart,’ p. 54 (N.Y.).

5

1843.  Patterson was what I calls real grit. He was a good, quiet, steady man, too, on board ship; always clean and actyve, and cheerful in obeying orders.—A. E. Silliman, ‘Gallop among American Scenery,’ p. 76.

6

1844.  She’s … as slick as a peeled maple, and as clear grit as a skinned tater rolled in the sand.—Yale Lit. Mag., x. 167 (Feb.).

7

1846.  [He] sed the parson wuz dreffle tickled with ’em [the vanes] as i hoop you will Be, and said they wuz True grit.—‘Biglow Papers,’ No. 1.

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1853.  A man that refuses to walk up in the track, no matter what comes, and steadily press forward, though there should be a lion in the way, is not of “Mormon” grit. That was the grit Joseph Smith had.—Elder J. M. Grant at the Tabernacle, Aug. 7: ‘Journal of Discourses,’ i. 348.

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1853.  It goes agin my grit for Hardscrabble to cave in to Dogtown, when we could knock the hindsights off ’em, if we was only a mind to.—Durivage, ‘Life Scenes,’ p. 43.

10

1855.  They are full of grit, and ready to swallow Cuba alive.—Seba Smith, ‘Major Jack Downing,’ p. 434 (1860).

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1862.  

        He was six foot o’ man, A 1,
  Clear grit an’ human natur’;
None could n’t quicker pitch a ton
  No dror a furrer straighter.
J. R. Lowell, ‘The Courtin’.’    

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1866.  Mr. Whipple’s subject was “Grit,” of which, the lecturer said, there was defiance in the very sound. Grit was spirit and will thrust into heart and backbone.—N.Y. Tribune, Oct. 17 (Bartlett).

13

1869.  These Mexicans [she said] were dead-alive sort of cusses. The men had no grit, and the women no jingle.—J. Ross Browne, ‘Adventures in the Apache Country,’ p. 182 (N.Y.).

14

a. 1880.  See Appendix XXII.

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