to grit one's teeth
1
7.0
- phrasal verb
- Informal
:
apretar los dientes
- She grits her teeth, hyperventilates, and stares around the room in search of escape, an answer, something.
- made her grit her teeth
Examples
-
She grits her teeth and fights back a wave of vertigo.
Fiction book (1993) -
She learned to grit her teeth, clench her fists, and submerge anything in herself that she could not change.
Fiction book (1991) -
Did you close your eyes and grit your teeth and think of the cash?
-
Just grit your teeth and cut!
-
Sometimes she just grits her teeth until that relief comes.
Blog text (6) -
The unfairness of it made her grit her teeth.
Fiction book (2000) -
She had to grit her teeth and tell the truth.
Fiction book (1991) -
For a woman who wants a child, these things are a sore trial, but she grits her teeth and tolerates - for a woman who does not want a child, they are unbearable.
Blog text (11) -
She had to grit her teeth and endure the painful treatment.
-
When faced with a challenging project, he remembered to grit his teeth and keep going.
Synonyms
7
5.6
To press your teeth together when you feel angry or in pain
Antonyms
How Determined
22
5.1
- Informal
1
7.0
- Australian
1
8.5
876
3.9
288
4.3
Surface Forms
Morphology
The components 'grit' (mental toughness) and 'one's teeth' (literal teeth) provide a clear physical and metaphorical cue—clenching teeth to endure—which makes the general idea of 'bearing pain or difficulty with determination' partially inferable. However, the verbal collocation 'grit one's teeth' is a conventionalized metaphor and the exact idiomatic sense is not fully predictable from the parts for a B1 learner without prior exposure.
Etymology
Grit one's teeth comes from the physical act of gritting your teeth — pressing them together or clenching your jaw when you feel pain or anger. People do this to harden themselves and keep going, so the phrase means 'get through' or 'put up with' something unpleasant.