Answers: grisly v. grizzly
Question: What is the difference between "grisly" and "grizzly?" (With bonus coverage of "gristly"!)
These two adjectives sound alike. There is a slight difference between them: "grisly" has more of a hissing "sss" sound, while "grizzly" has the "zzz". Still, they’re awfully close. So what’s the difference?
grisly: (adj.) causing a shudder or feeling of horror; horrible; gruesome.
I don’t know about you, but that reminds me of one special person:
Just thinking about the grisly evidence of Lord Voldemort’s crimes caused people everywhere to shiver with fear and revulsion.
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was brought back to life in a grisly ceremony involving his father’s bones, Wormtail’s hand, and Harry’s blood.
But you can use "grisly" in non-Voldemort contexts, too:
It took hours for the survivors to clean up the grisly aftermath of the battle of Helm’s Deep. Orc parts were everywhere.
It seems pretty clear that "grisly" describes horrible, terrible things, blood and guts, murder and mayhem.
Some coverage of another similar-sounding word, "gristly", might also be handy here:
gristly (adj.): resembling or containing gristle; cartilaginous; difficult to chew.
To clarify,
gristle (noun): Cartilage, especially when present in meat.
Uh, yum? Let's see some examples:
Harry knew that Hedwig ate mice raw, swallowing down the bones and meat all together in a gristly mouthful.
The orc always ate hobbit meat without cooking it first: it was gristly, but the meal was so much more fun when dinner fought back.
"Gristly" is just about the bones in your meat. A "grisly" battle will be full of blood and guts, but a "gristly" battle would suggest to me that the losers got eaten afterwards. Clearly a key distinction!
Now let’s look at "grizzly", where we have two different meanings to consider:
grizzly: (adj.) Grayish or flecked with gray; showing characteristics of age, especially having grey or white hair.
(noun) powerful brownish-yellow bear of the uplands of western North America.
I don’t think you’ll see "grizzly" in the "grayish" meaning very often; at least in the US, it’s more typical to use "grizzled". If you do use it that way, it’ll almost always be about some old dude. Here’s a few examples:
A grizzly old man was serving butterbeer at the Leaky Cauldron. (Compare with "a grizzled old man".)
The years passed, and though Arwen’s hair remained a deep chestnut, Aragorn’s beard began to look grizzly.
If you’re talking about a bear, you can say "a grizzly" or "a grizzly bear". Either way, you will always mean a bear:
Right before entering the reptile house at the zoo, Harry saw a grizzly bear. It was almost as big as Dudley.
Harry saw a grizzly that was almost as big as Dudley. (It works with or without the "bear".)
Of course you don’t want to get these two words confused: a grizzly battle would involve fur flying, not bloodshed, and a grisly bear would just be disturbing.
Because I'm extra-talented, I'm going to use all three of these words in one sentence. Ready?
The grizzled old grizzly made a grisly meal of the hapless hikers, and afterwards he pulled little gristly bits out of his teeth.
Things to keep in mind when choosing among these similar-sounding words:
- "grisly" is about gore and murder and death and blood; "grisly" is gruesome
- "gristly" refers to the bones in your meat
- "grizzly" is about old people or bears
- if you’re talking about old people, you should be able to substitute "grizzled" very easily (and "grisled" or "gristled" isn’t a word)
- if you’re talking about bears, remember to use the word with the Z. Here’s a mnemonic: Grizzly bears catch their Z’s in the winter.
Definitions found on dictionary.com.
These two adjectives sound alike. There is a slight difference between them: "grisly" has more of a hissing "sss" sound, while "grizzly" has the "zzz". Still, they’re awfully close. So what’s the difference?
grisly: (adj.) causing a shudder or feeling of horror; horrible; gruesome.
I don’t know about you, but that reminds me of one special person:
Just thinking about the grisly evidence of Lord Voldemort’s crimes caused people everywhere to shiver with fear and revulsion.
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was brought back to life in a grisly ceremony involving his father’s bones, Wormtail’s hand, and Harry’s blood.
But you can use "grisly" in non-Voldemort contexts, too:
It took hours for the survivors to clean up the grisly aftermath of the battle of Helm’s Deep. Orc parts were everywhere.
It seems pretty clear that "grisly" describes horrible, terrible things, blood and guts, murder and mayhem.
Some coverage of another similar-sounding word, "gristly", might also be handy here:
gristly (adj.): resembling or containing gristle; cartilaginous; difficult to chew.
To clarify,
gristle (noun): Cartilage, especially when present in meat.
Uh, yum? Let's see some examples:
Harry knew that Hedwig ate mice raw, swallowing down the bones and meat all together in a gristly mouthful.
The orc always ate hobbit meat without cooking it first: it was gristly, but the meal was so much more fun when dinner fought back.
"Gristly" is just about the bones in your meat. A "grisly" battle will be full of blood and guts, but a "gristly" battle would suggest to me that the losers got eaten afterwards. Clearly a key distinction!
Now let’s look at "grizzly", where we have two different meanings to consider:
grizzly: (adj.) Grayish or flecked with gray; showing characteristics of age, especially having grey or white hair.
(noun) powerful brownish-yellow bear of the uplands of western North America.
I don’t think you’ll see "grizzly" in the "grayish" meaning very often; at least in the US, it’s more typical to use "grizzled". If you do use it that way, it’ll almost always be about some old dude. Here’s a few examples:
A grizzly old man was serving butterbeer at the Leaky Cauldron. (Compare with "a grizzled old man".)
The years passed, and though Arwen’s hair remained a deep chestnut, Aragorn’s beard began to look grizzly.
If you’re talking about a bear, you can say "a grizzly" or "a grizzly bear". Either way, you will always mean a bear:
Right before entering the reptile house at the zoo, Harry saw a grizzly bear. It was almost as big as Dudley.
Harry saw a grizzly that was almost as big as Dudley. (It works with or without the "bear".)
Of course you don’t want to get these two words confused: a grizzly battle would involve fur flying, not bloodshed, and a grisly bear would just be disturbing.
Because I'm extra-talented, I'm going to use all three of these words in one sentence. Ready?
The grizzled old grizzly made a grisly meal of the hapless hikers, and afterwards he pulled little gristly bits out of his teeth.
Things to keep in mind when choosing among these similar-sounding words:
- "grisly" is about gore and murder and death and blood; "grisly" is gruesome
- "gristly" refers to the bones in your meat
- "grizzly" is about old people or bears
- if you’re talking about old people, you should be able to substitute "grizzled" very easily (and "grisled" or "gristled" isn’t a word)
- if you’re talking about bears, remember to use the word with the Z. Here’s a mnemonic: Grizzly bears catch their Z’s in the winter.
Definitions found on dictionary.com.