Meaning of grind in English

grind

verb [ T ]

/ɡraɪnd/ us

/ɡraɪnd/

ground | ground

grind verb [T] (MAKE SMALLER)

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to make something into small pieces or a powder by pressing between hard surfaces:

to grind coffee

Shall I grind a little black pepper over your salad?

grind something into something They grind the grain into flour (= make flour by crushing grain) between two large stones.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Squeezing and grinding

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grind verb [T] (RUB)

to rub something against a hard surface, in order to make it sharper or smoother:

She has a set of chef's knives that she grinds every week.

grind something down He ground down the sharp metal edges to make them smooth.

The car engine was making a strange grinding noise.

See also

grindstone

grind your teeth

to make a noise by rubbing your teeth together:

She grinds her teeth in her sleep.

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Scratching and rubbing

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grind verb [T] (COMPUTER GAMES)

slang

in computer games, to repeat tasks many times in order to make your character more powerful, get more useful things, etc. :

It can be hard to grind a game without getting bored.

He asked me how to grind the game without spending money.

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Miscellaneous games & activities

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Idioms

grind the faces of the poor
grind someone's gears
grind to a halt/standstill

Phrasal verbs

grind someone down
grind something into something
grind something out

grind

noun

/ɡraɪnd/ us

/ɡraɪnd/

grind noun (POWDER)

[ C ]

the size of grains in a substance that has been ground, especially coffee:

Use the correct grind for your coffee brewer.

Cook time will vary from 5–10 minutes for instant grits to around 45 minutes for the coarser grinds.

[ C ]

an action of grinding a substance into a powder:

Season with a few grinds of black pepper.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Words meaning small pieces and amounts

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Squeezing and grinding

grind noun (WORK)

[ S ] informal

a difficult or boring activity that needs a lot of effort:

Having to type up my handwritten work was a real grind.

daily grind The daily grind of taking care of three children was wearing her down.

[ C ] US disapproving, informal

a boring person who studies all the time and does nothing else

[ C usually plural ] Irish English, informal

extra lessons in a subject from a private teacher:

She's getting grinds.

He can give you maths grinds.

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Work, working and the workplace

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People who are boring and old-fashioned

Classes & courses

(Definition of grind from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

grind | American Dictionary

grind

verb

/ɡrɑɪnd/

grind verb (CRUSH)

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[ T ] past tense and past participle ground us/ɡrɑʊnd/

to crush a substance between hard, moving surfaces into small pieces or a powder:

Every morning I go to the kitchen and grind some coffee.

Add a teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper.

grind verb (RUB)

[ T ] past tense and past participle ground us/ɡrɑʊnd/

to rub an object against a hard surface in order to make it sharper, thinner, or smoother:

Laborers grind and shape steel bars into decorative fences.

[ T ] past tense and past participle ground us/ɡrɑʊnd/

If you grind two sets of objects, you press and rub them together in a way that makes an unpleasant noise:

Ursula grinds her teeth at night.

Idiom

grind to a halt

grind

noun [ U ]

infml

/ɡrɑɪnd/

grind noun [U] (ACTIVITY)

difficult or unpleasant activity that is tiring or repeated too often:

Karen came to the hotel for a rest from the daily grind.

(Definition of grind from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

grind | Business English

grind

noun [ S ]

informal

/ɡraɪnd/ us

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a difficult or boring activity that needs a lot of effort:

He recalls the grind of working his day job and then in a bar at night.

the daily grind

employment, especially when this consists of boring activities:

The recession has driven many would-be-retirees back to the daily grind.

grind

verb [ T ]

/ɡraɪnd/ us

ground | ground

grind to a halt/standstill

to stop gradually:

Business ground to a standstill during the bad weather.

(Definition of grind from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of grind

grind

The perforated disks were created by reworking a potsherd into a circular form by chipping, drilling, and then grinding the edges to a smooth finish.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Samples from the normal smooth surface of the gneiss boulder show that the surface has been ground and polished during glacial transportation.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The soil was gently ground, passed through a 2-mm sieve and completely mixed prior to being placed in pots.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

A p-rule is ground exactly when every atom in it is ground.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Time to stop the little saltmill grinding, before everything else has become bitter.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In cases of the latter sort, the values that ground our attitudes are not truly our own.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The tissue was dried by grinding with anhydrous sodium sulfate and extracted with several volumes of hexane to remove carotenoids, retinols, and retinyl esters.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Where the standards were unclear, gover nment officials faced the dilemma of how to ground the political justification for authoritative direction of private voluntary relationships.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The key to the answer lies in whether it is judged appropriate to ground primal faith on the quadriplegic nature of divine activity.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The remaining part of the body was ground in a small bowl with physiological saline.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Thus, the customers' utilities ground the utilities of the other constraints.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The sides were glowing and going round, grinding out a familiar rumble.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Instead, this analysis aims at characterizing the nature of grinding activities in larger par ts of the city.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Both features favor long, extended grinding strokes instead of the shor t, downward crushing strokes of less intensive grinding.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The latter manos vary considerably, being too small, too large, or too irregularly shaped for grinding large amounts of maize on a daily basis.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

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These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

What is the pronunciation of grind?