grind
pronunciation
How to pronounce grind in British English:
UK [ɡraɪnd]
How to pronounce grind in American English:
US [ɡraɪnd]
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- Noun:
- an insignificant student who is ridiculed as being affected or studying excessively
- hard monotonous routine work
- the act of grinding to a powder or dust
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- Verb:
- press or grind with a crunching noise
- make a grating or grinding sound by rubbing together
- reduce to small pieces or particles by pounding or abrading
- work hard
- dance by rotating the pelvis in an erotically suggestive way, often while in contact with one's partner such that the dancers' legs are interlaced
Word Origin
- grind
- grind: [OE] Grind is part of the ancient Indo- European word-stock. Relatives such as Latin frendere ‘crush’ and Lithuanian grendu ‘rub’ point back to an Indo-European *ghrendh-. This perhaps denoted ‘crushing’ rather than what we would today call ‘grinding’; for in earliest times grain was crushed rather than ground to produce meal. The connotations of the word seem to have changed in step with advances in grainpulverizing technology. (The same is true, incidentally, in the case of Indo-European *mel-, which produced the majority of modern European words for ‘grind’, from German mahlen and Spanish moler to Russian molot’, and also gave English meal, mill, molar, etc.) Grist [OE] was formed from the same base as produced grind, and until the 15th century meant simply ‘grinding’.=> grist
- grind (v.)
- Old English grindan "to rub together, crush into powder, grate, scrape," forgrindan "destroy by crushing" (class III strong verb; past tense grand, past participle grunden), from Proto-Germanic *grindanan (cognates: Dutch grenden), related to ground, from PIE *ghrendh- "to grind" (cognates: Latin frendere "to gnash the teeth," Greek khondros "corn, grain," Lithuanian grendu "to scrape, scratch"). Meaning "to make smooth or sharp by friction" is from c. 1300. Most other Germanic languages use a verb cognate with Latin molere (compare Dutch malen, Old Norse mala, German mahlen).
- grind (n.)
- late Old English, "the gnashing of teeth;" c. 1200, "the act of chewing or grinding," from grind (v.). The sense "steady, hard, tedious work" first recorded 1851 in college student slang (but compare gerund-grinder, 1710); the meaning "hard-working student, one who studies with dogged application" is American English slang from 1864. Slang meaning "sexual intercourse" is by 1893.
Example
- 1. Facebook 's isolation is a grind .
- 2. Photo taken of the eyjafjallajokull volcano eruption that would grind most of europe air traffic .
- 3. The story went that this whirlpool could suck any ship down and grind it to splinters .
- 4. And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe .
- 5. A couple of years ago , she found herself running a cost-benefit analysis of a friendship from her early 20s that was starting to grind her down .