grit
A collection of hard small materials, such as dirt, ground stone, debris from sandblasting or other such grinding, or swarf from metalworking.
Example
“The flower beds were white with grit from sand blasting the flagstone walkways.”
Other meanings
Sand or a sand–salt mixture spread on wet and, especially, icy roads and footpaths to improve traction.
Small, hard, inedible particles in food.
“These cookies seem to have grit from nutshells in them.”
Word history
From Old English "greot" (grēot).
Where this comes from
This definition is adapted from “grit” on Wiktionary, by its contributors, published under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is published under the same licence.