Grisly means disgusting and bloody, absolutely repulsive and horrible. There is a wonderful movie about a man who suffers a grisly death at the hands of the grizzly bears he was studying.
Do you like grisly horror movies? You might think that the reason the word grisly is so creepy, gruesome, and terrifying is somehow related to gristle, those really nasty tough parts you find in meat. You know, the ones you can't chew up, so you have to spit them into your napkin, right? Scary AND gross. But no, this is not the case. Old English grislic, the root of the word, meant "horrible, dreadful." Still, thinking about gristle might help you to remember the meaning of grisly.
