adjective
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resembling, full of, or composed of grain; granular
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resembling the grain of wood, leather, etc
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photog having poor definition because of large grain size
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of grainy
Explanation
Something that's grainy feels rough to the touch, as though it's made of many tiny pieces. A piece of rough sandpaper feels grainy. Cornmeal is grainy, and your floor will feel grainy under your bare feet after your family returns from the beach with sand on their shoes. Grainy things are gritty, textured with little bumps or grains. You'll be disappointed if your birthday cake has a grainy texture. The earliest, thirteenth-century meaning of grainy was "scarlet dye," a result of its Old French root, which had several meanings including "seed" and "berry." The Latin origin is granum, "seed, grain, or small kernel."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
For Bay Area journalist Bojana Cvijic, “The Devils” began as grainy screenshots on her Tumblr dashboard and a low-quality “yet still awe-inspiring” torrent sent over by a friend.
From Salon ● Oct. 22, 2026
The grainy footage, which has no audio, is said to show her wearing a yellow shirt, a baseball cap and a backpack while browsing items, including Molly the bird.
From BBC ● Oct. 14, 2026
Without technological help, departments were left working with partial descriptions taken from grainy surveillance footage of suspect vehicles, Rodriguez said.
From Salon ● Sep. 6, 2026
Visually, the film toggles between intimate 35mm black-and-white, grainy 16mm color and multi-purpose digital cameras that visually represent distinct eras.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 15, 2026
From how grainy the shot looked, it must have been taken with some insanely high-powered camera lens, from some remote hill.
From "Warcross" by Marie Lu
Pictures produced by the Fairphone 4 were grainier and less attractive than shots taken with iPhones and other mainstream Android phones.
From New York Times ● Sep. 8, 2022
The texture is slightly grainier than some of the other butters I tried, but I didn't mind it.
From Salon ● Jan. 4, 2022
The iPhone 12 Pro Max’s telephoto camera has a slightly longer reach the the 12 Pro’s, but it’s grainier in low light.
From The Verge ● Nov. 9, 2020
Co-founders Caroline Beckman and Nina Church use everything -- seeds, stems, cores and skins -- to retain fiber, which also makes the texture grainier than similar offerings.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2016
Its texture was slightly grainier than it should have been, which makes me think I may have beaten the whites a little too long.
From "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan
Vibrant canary yellow and savoy blue jerseys that cut through even the grainiest television footage.
From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026
It’s a trek that puts Rodrigo in a reflective state, and Lee’s mood-infused film is tailored to appeal to the vintage taste of a Gen Z crowd that loves the grainiest of photo filters.
From New York Times ● Mar. 24, 2022
But he contributed more than some stunning plays that were captured on the grainiest of black-and-white film.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 23, 2021
Styles had the grainiest voice in the group, which often reserved it to arrive just when the verse pushed into the chorus.
From New York Times ● Dec. 12, 2019
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