Word.ws English Dictionary

in the gristle

in the gristle prepositional phrase: not yet hardened into bone or strengthened into sinew.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (literal) Not yet hardened into bone or strengthened into sinew.
    • Most cartilage is not merely premature bone; but there is a grain of truth to the old notion that newborn creatures' bodies are yet in the gristle, as some bones are still developing.
  2. (figuratively) Young, weak, and unformed.
    • The country’s first prime minister, the hard-drinking political pragmatist Sir John A. Macdonald, was all too aware of the fragilities this entailed [the challenges of unifying a Canadian federal polity], stating in 1872 that Confederation “is only yet in the gristle, and it will require five years...2026 July 1 [1872], Dónal Gill, quoting John A. Macdonald, “Canada’s Mistake Was Believing the Border No Longer Mattered”, in The Walrus, archived from the original on 01 Jul 2026

Questions about in the gristle

What does in the gristle mean?
In the gristle means not yet hardened into bone or strengthened into sinew.
What part of speech is in the gristle?
In the gristle is a prepositional phrase.

Words near in the gristle in the dictionary

  1. in the game
  2. in the green
  3. in the green tree
  4. in the green tree … in the dry
  5. in the grip of
  6. in the gristle
  7. in the groove
  8. in the gross
  9. in the ground
  10. in the hand
  11. in the hands of

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: in the gristle (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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