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grind

verbnounnouncommon in dialogue

  • //ˈɡɹaɪnd//
  • //ˈɡɹɪnd//

To reduce to smaller pieces by crushing with lateral motion.

verb

  1. 1

    To reduce to smaller pieces by crushing with lateral motion.

  2. 2

    To shape with the force of friction.

    grind a lens; grind an axe

  3. 3

    To remove material by rubbing with an abrasive surface.

  4. 4

    To become ground, pulverized, or polished by friction.

    This corn grinds well.

    Steel grinds to a sharp edge.

  5. 5

    To move with much difficulty or friction; to grate.

  6. 6

    To slide the flat portion of a skateboard or snowboard across an obstacle such as a railing.

  7. 7

    To oppress, hold down or weaken.

  8. 8

    slangTo rotate the hips erotically.

    She said, "How'd you like to waste some time?" / And I could not resist when I saw little Nikki grind

  9. 9

    slangTo dance in a sexually suggestive way with both partners in very close proximity, often pressed against each other.

  10. 10

    slangTo rub one's body against another's in a sexual way; to frottage.

    She wanted to grind herself against him, wanted to moan, loud and free, wanted to take his hand and make him touch her more firmly.

    He ground against her until he was muttering curses, his kiss rougher than before.

    She kept grinding until they were both spent: their bliss washing over them entirely.

    This morning, we woke up and made out for a solid forty-five minutes, grinding like teenagers until she came against my thigh.

  11. 11

    To repeat a task a large number of times in a row to achieve a specific goal.

    These enemies give lots of loot when killed, so many players fight them to grind for resources.

    The first level of the game is the best place to grind extra lives.

    For a while I used to grind demons and try to get the count higher.

    Similarly, nearly all massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), such as Dungeons & Dragons Online, feature grind: Players repeat tasks, or often “quests”, to gain in-game currency to spend on weapons or other ancillary items.

  12. 12

    To operate by turning a crank.

    to grind an organ

  13. 13

    To produce mechanically and repetitively as if by turning a crank.

  14. 14

    datedTo automatically format and indent code.

  15. 15

    slangTo eat.

    Eh, brah, let's go grind.

  16. 16

    To instill through repetitive teaching.

    Grinding lessons into students' heads does not motivate them to learn.

  17. 17

    slangTo work or study hard; to hustle or drudge.

    to grind LeetCode

    One evening, during evening work, Charlie was trying hard to do the verses which had been set to his form. […] Wilton, whose conduct had been more impertinent than that of any one else, said to Charlie— “I say, young Evson, how you are grinding.” “I have these verses to do,” said Charlie simply.

  18. 18

    slangTo annoy or irritate (a person); to grind one's gears.

    I need to pontificate on something that really grinds me. So here goes. I am sick and tired of lazy thinkers using the defense of “legislated morality.”

Etymology

From Middle English grynden, from Old English grindan (“to grind”), from Proto-West Germanic *grindan, from Proto-Germanic *grindaną (“to crush, grind”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian gríende, griene (“to grind, mill”), West Frisian grintsje (“to crush, punish”), Dutch grinden (“to grind”, rare) and grind (“gravel, shingle”), Albanian grind (“to brawl, fight”).

noun

  1. 1

    The act of reducing to powder, or of sharpening, by friction.

  2. 2

    Something that has been reduced to powder, something that has been ground.

  3. 3

    A specific degree of pulverization of coffee beans.

    This bag contains espresso grind.

  4. 4

    A tedious and laborious task.

    This homework is a grind.

    Running again in more open agricultural country, the Harrogate line encounters a short downgrade before the stiff uphill grind to Harrogate begins.

  5. 5

    A grinding trick on a skateboard or snowboard.

  6. 6

    archaicOne who studies hard.

    If you are at all bright, don't be a grind. Grinding may make a second-hand genius of you (for all the real things are dead), and if you become a genius you will be sure to smoke dope or swallow laudanum. They all did it.

    […] I suppose I don't know much about books, compared with you—” “Oh, I was never much of a grind,” the other cut in hastily.

  7. 7

    slangHustle; hard work.

    I've been on the grind all week, trying to make ends meet.

    Everyone has to work, they mourned, and that takes its toll. They weren't glamourising the grind because they knew their effort didn't match the supposed rewards.

  8. 8

    Variant of grindcoreClipping of grindcore (“subgenre of heavy metal”).

noun

  1. 1

    A traditional communal pilot whale hunt in the Faroe Islands.

Etymology

From Faroese grind (“pilot-whale meat”).

Forms

plural
grinds
past tense
ground, grinded
past participle
ground, grinded
present participle
grinding
third person singular
grinds
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).