How to Use gristle in a Sentence

gristle

noun
  • The cub felt like gristle, taut, like a spasmed muscle in my arms.
    — Literary Hub, 5 Mar. 2026
  • My wife got the brisket and turkey which were both smoky but the brisket had a titch too much gristle.
    — cleveland, 23 Dec. 2021
  • The meat was tender and boldly beefy, but there was some gristle and fat to work around.
    — Polly Campbell, Cincinnati.com, 21 Mar. 2018
  • Remove the pork from the pot and use two forks to shred it, discarding any gristle.
    — Jill Gibson, BostonGlobe.com, 23 Apr. 2018
  • At the end of the meal, our colleague finished his entire steak except the gristle.
    — Dalton Ross, EW.com, 8 Oct. 2020
  • There is banter and there is not-banter, but no gristle connecting them.
    — James Wood, New Yorker, 14 July 2025
  • Place the food thermometer in the thickest part of the food, making sure not to touch bone, fat, or gristle.
    — Emily Bamforth, cleveland, 17 Mar. 2020
  • Berry told him to drench it in barbecue sauce and to not eat it too close to the bone because that's where most of the gristle was.
    — Tony Holt, Arkansas Online, 25 June 2023
  • While the pork knuckle is still warm, separate the meat from the bone; discard the bone with the fat, and the gristle.
    — Kate Krader, Fortune, 11 Dec. 2021
  • When cool enough to handle, remove the meat from both and shred into bite-size pieces; discard the bones, fat, and gristle.
    — Christopher Kimball, BostonGlobe.com, 22 Nov. 2022
  • This connective tissue changes during cooking and adds texture – and gristle – to meat.
    — Natalie R. Rubio, The Conversation, 5 July 2019
  • When cool enough to handle, strip them of their meat and toss the skin, gristle, and bones, reserving both the meat and the concentrated broth.
    — Bill St. John, The Denver Post, 4 Dec. 2019
  • There’s gristle to Druig’s (Barry Keoghan) slim portion of the story.
    — Angelica Jade Bastién, Vulture, 5 Nov. 2021
  • Tear pork into shaggy pieces, discarding any sections of fat or gristle, and return meat to pot with cooking liquid.
    — Amiel Stanek, Bon Appetit, 19 Mar. 2018
  • Fewer still can do that while singing with such untroubled suppleness, without a trace of steeliness or gristle in her voice.
    — Justin Davidson, Vulture, 30 Apr. 2025
  • Properly ground meat should have a consistent texture with no large pieces of gristle or connective tissue.
    — Brad Fenson, Field & Stream, 14 Feb. 2023
  • The high heat delivered a crispy gristle on the steak that sealed in the seasoning like a blanket and allowed the beef flavor to stand out more than the fuel.
    — Chuck Blount, San Antonio Express-News, 15 Feb. 2021
  • Remove as much fat, gristle, fascia—anything but muscle—since fat and other non-muscle parts can oxidize quicker and spoil meat.
    — Jack Hennessy, Outdoor Life, 3 Dec. 2020
  • Chewing on concepts, working the gristle over and over in my maw, macerating the words into submission.
    — Alyssa Brandt, The New Yorker, 30 Jan. 2023
  • His review begins with Giuseppe Garibaldi, on the beach at Marsala, bootsoles in the saltwhite shallows, wind in his beard gristle.
    — Sam Kriss, Harpers Magazine, 24 Feb. 2026
  • Rendered through these three artists, the sweat and gristle of black genius—which is to say, the bone-tough work of black genius—was nearly impossible to escape, online and off.
    — Jason Parham, WIRED, 20 Apr. 2018
  • Together the ensemble - representing the boundless and the finite, the cosmic and the gristle of human life- speaks to life and death.
    — Andrew Dansby, Houston Chronicle, 31 Jan. 2018
  • One snip of the scissors and the fat fell away, leaving an incredibly tender steak blessedly free of the greasy gristle and chewy char found on the other steaks my parents tried to force on me.
    — Bill Daley, chicagotribune.com, 14 June 2018
  • The business press always has to have something to say each day, and debating the independence of the Fed is just the kind of gristle the media likes to sink its teeth into.
    — Jim Cramer, CNBC, 18 Sep. 2025
  • Perfect gristle for the celebrity industrial complex’s hunger for attention.
    — Dave Schilling, Los Angeles Times, 29 Aug. 2022
  • Kristóf’s sentences are like those skeletons, commemorations of indescribable sadness that have been meticulously scrubbed of gore and gristle.
    — Jennifer Krasinski, The New Yorker, 27 June 2023
  • Genre fans might be disappointed by the lack of gristle that comes with a PG-13 rating, save for one particularly nasty scene involving an ear.
    — Jake Smith, Glamour, 10 Jan. 2023
  • The 6-foot-2 Kansan with a nasty sinking fastball has blown out his right medial collateral ligament — a critical piece of elbow gristle — not once but twice.
    — Alex Lash, WIRED, 1 Sep. 2002
  • There’s mounting evidence that the tax bill – which screws over the poor and delivers legislative filet mignon to the rich, with the middle class left to gnaw on the gristle – would be the most unpopular major new law in several generations.
    — Will Bunch, Philly.com, 17 Dec. 2017
  • But because the bushings (the gristle) remain compliant in the vertical axis, on a bumpy highway the dampers and springing still absorb bumps without jostling the spine, and there’s no increase in harmonics from all those nifty suspension arms.
    — Mark Ewing, Forbes, 21 Oct. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'gristle.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: