I must confess I tend to associate grisly with gristle, and oh man, is that ever tasty on a steak or pork roast! In truth, while grisly and grizzly sound alike, they certainly aren’t spelled alike. And no, Grizzly Adams was a movie and then a TV show, which happened to be about a mountain man catching grizzlies.
Gristly was added 14 November 2016.
Word Confusions…
…started as my way of dealing with a professional frustration with properly spelled words that were out of context in manuscripts I was editing as well as books I was reviewing. It evolved into a sharing of information with y’all. I’m hoping you’ll share with us words that have been a bête noir for you from either end.
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| Grisly | Gristly | Grizzly |
|---|---|---|
| Credit to: Apple Dictionary.com | ||
Grisly Remains, Kimmeridge, Dorset, Great Britain, by Phil Champion is under the CC BY-SA 2.0 license, via |
Braised, Stuffed Heart by Ann Rosener is in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. — Preparing a heart for cooking requires removing the gristly bits and blood vessels. |
Grizzlybears by Chris Servheen/USFWS is in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. |
| Part of Grammar: | ||
| Adjective | Adjective | Adjective 1, 2; Noun 3 Plural for noun: grizzlies |
| Causing horror or disgust | Consisting of or full of gristle | Adjective: Gray or gray-haired 1 [Of a child] Inclined to cry fretfully 2 Noun: |
| Examples: | ||
| The town was shaken by a series of grisly crimes.
It was the most grisly murder I had ever seen. All that blood…body parts…it was a grisly scene for all of us. |
There were a lot of gristly bits of beef.
All the gristly meat explained why it was so cheap. It’s best to braise gristly meat. |
Adjective: “I love how grizzly his mustache is,” she sighed. Janice couldn’t take it anymore. She had to get that grizzly mop cut and dyed! She was such a grizzly baby. Noun: Yep, there’s where I want to see grizzlies…at the zoo. |
| Derivatives: | ||
| Adjective: grislier, grisliest Noun: grisliness |
Adjective: gristlier, gristliest Noun: gristle, gristliness |
Adjective: grizzlier, grizzliest Noun: grizzler Verb, intransitive: grizzle |
| History of the Word: | ||
| Old English grislic meaning terrifying is of Germanic origin and related to the Dutch griezelig. | Old English, of unknown origin. | 1 Mid-16th century, from grizzle. |
C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan…which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them…and we’ll all benefit!
Pinterest Photo Credits:
A Rough and Tumble with a Grizzley by H. Bullock Webster is in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
