gristle
/ˈɡɹɪsəl/ noun
Forms gristles
- noun Cartilage; now especially: cartilage present, as a tough substance, in meat.
- noun (figuratively, from obsolete scientific theory) Bone not yet hardened by age and hard work.
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English gristel, grystyl, from Old English gristel (“gristle, cartilage”), Proto-West Germanic *gristl, of obscure origin; possibly from a pre-Germanic substrate language. Seemingly equivalent to a diminutive of Old English grist (“a grinding”), equivalent to modern English grist + -le; possibly related to Proto-Germanic *gredaną (“to crunch”). Cognate with Old Frisian gristel, gerstel (“gristle, cartilage”), Middle Low German gristel (“gristle”).
Webster’s 1913
Etymology [OE. gristel, gristil, AS. gristl; akin to OFries. gristel, grestel. Perh. a dim. of grist but cf. OHG. krustila, krostela. Cf. Grist.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “gristle”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details