Here's the scoop on sand
At the beach, you expect your shoes to fill with loose particles of rock. But sand has another meaning. Figuratively, the term means grit or courage, and comes from the expression "to have sand in one's craw." That refers to the belief that a chicken that eats a little sand is tougher than one that doesn't. What other words and expressions have sand in them?
1. a loosely organized baseball game
2. a flat, circular sea urchin that lives on the sandy sea bottom
3. to curtail or stop
4. an hourglass
5. a luncheon offering
6. a small shorebird
7. an open shoe secured with a thong or straps
8. to undertake an endless or impossible task
9. former name of Hawaii
10. the United States poet who wrote a lot about Chicago
11. to have a weak foundation
12. the fragrant heartwood of certain Asian trees
(1) sandlot baseball, played by youngsters or semipros; (2) sand dollar; (3) to sandbag; (4) sand clock or sandglass - "the sands of time"; (5) sandwich; (6) sandpiper; (7) sandal; (8) "to number the sands"; (9) Sandwich Islands; (10) 20th-century poet Carl Sandburg; (11) to build one's house on the sand (the proverbial weak tie or union is a "rope of sand"); (12) sandalwood.
Sources: The World Book Dictionary; Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, by Ivor Evans; The Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, by Robert Hendrickson.
