Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) (also grine) to have sexual intercourse; thus grinding n.; of a man, grind one’s tool v.

1533		J. Heywood Play of Weather in Farmer Dramatic Writings (1905) 108: No water have we to grind at any stint, / The wind is so strong the rain cannot fall, / Which keepeth our milldams as dry as a flint.
c.1564		Buckley ‘Oxford Libell’ Arundel Ms. II 283: Although the miller be awaye solar can ye stones wth coning conch there grist to grind they will not staye and tole free will not prise ye hutch.
1573		‘Cambridg Libell’ in May & Bryson Verse Libel 341: Thie stones doe Rolle and geat no mosse, / Still grynding others grayne.
c.1580		‘I.T.’ Grim The Collier of Croydon I iv: You may do as other Millers do, grind your grist at home.
1598		Florio Worlde of Wordes n.p.: Macinio, the grinding or greest. Also taken for carnall copulation.
1611–12		Dekker If This Be Not II ii: Ther’s little marying, we ha so much whoring. Grynding milles so much-vsde; about the citie Such grinding.
1621		Rowley, Dekker & Ford Witch of Edmonton IV i: The Man i’th’ Moon has built a new Wind-mill, and what running there’s from all quarters of the City to learn the Art of Grinding.
1640		Parliament of Women B4: Rachael Rattle-a-pace [said] so I hope that I bringing my sack to the mill, it may be ground among the rest.
1660		Man in the Moon 4 26 Nov. 26: As for the Mistris of the Newberry Garrison [i.e. a popular brothel], her tale is as common as a Wind-mill, she grinds corn for all Customers, her Chuck-office is the Toledish.
1674–9		‘Hey ho, for a Husband’ Pepys Ballads (1987) IV 9: If I should be a Miller’s Bride That wants a water-mill, Ile work enough for him provide That he may grinde his fill.
1683		Whores Rhetorick A5: Whilst the Gentleman is willing to purchase the Soil at any rate, you suffer him to sow the Seed; what he commonly reaps, you are best able to give an account of: and he that would grind with you, must pay the Toll before hand, even before he is permitted to bring his Grist to the Mill.
1696		in D’Urfey Comical Hist. of Don Quixote Pt 3 III i: The Old Wife she sent to the Miller her Daughter / To grind her Grist quickly [...] The Miller so workt it, that in eight months after, / Her Belly was fill’d as full as her Sack.
1707		N. Ward London Terraefilius III 35: You Ladies of the Grinding-Faculty, tho’ you Flourish for a time [...] may be blown down from the Tott’ring Pinnacle, upon which you are now Elevated.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy I 186: The old Wife she sent to the Miller her Daughter, / To grind her Grist quickly, and so return back, / The Miller so work’d it, that in eight Months after / Her Belly was fill’d as full as her Sack.
1731		Prisoners Opera 18: Could I have my Will, / I’d grind her Barley Toll-free.
1768		Gentleman’s Bottle-Companion 14: Here’s the Miller’s wife’s music, worth all other tones, / When the sluice is set open, and strong grind the stones.
1790		‘Bumper Allnight. Esquire’ Honest Fellow [as 1696].
1811		Lex. Balatronicum n.p.: To Grind. To have carnal knowledge of a woman.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1833		‘Poor Dirty Bet’ Lummy Chaunter 49: In the gin shop you may find her, / Wishing that the times were kinder, / ’Cause she gets no one to grind her. Poor dirty Bet!
1841		‘Fanny’s Mill’ Gentleman’s Spicey Songster 13: For Roger knew well how to grind / Her mill, for it, was new and clean.
1843		Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 18 Mar. 1/2: He is rather too large and the lady too small; and we know there is quite enough flour for him to grind at home.
1870		Cythera’s Hymnal in Pearsall (1969) 377: And I don’t like to see — it’s a fact by my life — / A married man grinding another man’s wife.
1888–94		‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) II 246: The more a cunt’s buttered, the better it grinds.
1889		Dead Bird (Sydney) 21 Dec. 8/1: A good tune may be got out of an old fiddle, but it is easier to grind the organ.
1899		Crissie 100: ‘Why don’t you give your pore wife a chaunce? [...] she could do with all the grinding she’ll get’.
c.1900		‘Ramrod’ Nocturnal Meeting 125: If it [i.e. a penis] has been grinding in your two mills all night [...] it must be a beauty.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 13 Apr. 6/5: One alleged ‘mother of twelve’ wrote that she was the mother of twelve children, and that her life had been ‘one grind, grind, grind.’ The joke [...] appeared in the oneth edition; but somebody woke up, and in the twoth edition it read, 'work, work, work’.
1928		Ethel Waters ‘Organ Grinder Blues’ 🎵 Grind it north, grind it north, / grind it north, and grind it east and west,/ When you grind it slow, I like it the best.
1936		Lil Johnson ‘Meat Balls’ 🎵 Now look here papa, don’t try to stall / If you can’t grind a long time, don’t grind at all.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 45: [song lyric] I’m busy grindin’ so you can’t come in.
1956		N. Algren Walk on the Wild Side 108: O you cawfee-grinding cawfee man! O you grind so good!
1967		I. Rosenthal Sheeper 236: I wait around sneakily until they actually wiggle their behinds right down onto my prick and grind. Grind you motherfuckers, grind.
1978		R. Price Ladies’ Man (1985) 147: I was on top of her, grinding.
1985		S. Berkoff West in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 112: All the grinding going on / and how many and how much / and all the wails and screaming.
1995		Francis-Jackson Official Dancehall Dict. 22: Grine to copulate, also grind.
2005		(con. 1951) A. Wheatle Island Songs (2006) 88: Some men [...] swore the herb presented them with ‘stamina fe grine women’.
2006		C. Hiaasen Nature Girl 81: I got you a naked woman grinding your husband on the sofa of her living room.

(b) (US) to rotate the hips in a sensuous manner while dancing.

1925		Odum & Johnson The Negro and His Songs (1964) 207: Beggin’ my honey to take me back, / She turn ’roun’ some two or three times: / ‘Take you back when you learn to grind’.
1928		M. Bodenheim Georgie May 137: Sometimes finding a man that knew how to grind and looked handsome.
1948		Mencken Amer. Lang. Supplement II 693: Grind, v. To revolve the backside.
1959		H. Salisbury Shook-Up Generation (1961) 29: When the director turns his back the youngsters move together again and grind away.
1963		J. Rechy City of Night 95: The bucktoothed spiritual-singing Jenny Lu [...] grinding, bumping at each uh! in a frenzied kind of jazz.
1971		T.C. Bambara ‘My Man Bovanne’ in Gorilla, My Love (1972) 7: Ain’t that the horny bitch that was grindin’ with the blind dude?
1981		Eble Campus Sl. Fall 4: grind – to dance.
2012		M. Lacher On the Bro’d 154: ‘[H]e’d be grinding up on like any chick, regardless of what their face and body were like’.

(c) to rub one’s body, esp. the genital area, against one’s partner while dancing; thus grinding n.

1943		R. Llewellyn None But the Lonely Heart 181: She pulled Him close in, proper grinding herself up against Him.
1952		‘Hal Ellson’ Golden Spike 184: She was a good dancer, and not afraid to grind.
1955		‘Hal Ellson’ Rock 13: They’re still dancing there. A slow number now. Everybody’s grinding.
1967		P. Thomas Down These Mean Streets (1970) 59: You keep in time with your whole body and swinging soul, and all of a sudden you’re in the middle, hung up with a chick; and the music is soft and she’s softer, and you make the most of grinding against her warmth.
1974		(con. 1960s) R. Price Wanderers 28: Eugene nudged him. ‘This is gonna be a grindin’ night.’.
1981		J. Wambaugh Glitter Dome (1982) 10: Three of the groping, licking, grinding pairs of cops and chickens had managed everything but penetration.
1997		L. Pettiway Workin’ It 41: He just like to grind with all your clothes on. [Ibid.] 158: He just laid it on the top, and y’all grind.
1999		Observer Mag. 18 July 16: ‘Even when it’s bumpin’ and grindin’?’ ‘All of our bodies, no matter what we’re doin’, it’s a temple,’ he replies sternly.

(a) (also grind it, grind up) to work hard, esp. at an unrewarding but necessary task; thus grinding n.

1815		in J.T. Coleridge Memoir of J. Keble (1869) 63: Perhaps when Tom leaves Oxford [...] we may contrive some gainful grinding scheme between us.
1835		E. Forbes in Wilson & Geikie Memoir (1861) 176: I am obliged to ‘grind’ [...] that is, undergo a private examination with an authorized teacher or tutor.
1848		Thackeray Vanity Fair III 115: He used to be savage, and inveigh against all parsons, scholars, and the like, – declaring that they were a pack of humbugs, and quacks, that weren’t fit to get their living but by grinding Latin and Greek.
1852–3		Burlesque Catalogue, Yale in Hall (1856) 28: The successful candidate enjoys especial and excessive grinding during the four years of his college course.
1862		Thackeray Adventures of Philip (1899) 147: He had enough to live on without grinding over classics and mathematics.
1868		Sportsman 15 July 2/1: Notes on News [...] Not few our renders may chance to have friend or relative [...] ‘grinding up’ for a staff appointment.
1871		L.H. Bagg Four Years at Yale 702: He is less to be pitied than the one who goes through the four years, digging and grinding for a stand, existing all unconscious of the peculiar and delightful life about him, and graduating in as utter ignorance of its philosophy.
1886		‘’Arry on Commercial Education’ Punch 26 Sept. in P. Marks (2006) 124: Grinds ’ard, never goes on the lap / Reads Shakespeare intead of the Pink ’Un.
1893		W.K. Post Harvard Stories 269: He had been found in his room ‘grinding’ for that degree.
1894		Star-Gaz. (Elmira, NY) 15 May 4/3: Yale College Slang [...] I cut the game, as I had a lot of grinding to do.
1908		H. Lawson ‘Exceeding Small’ in Roderick (1967–9) II 262: So ‘grind’ to win your high degrees / While runs the new world round.
1911		Gem 7 Oct. 4: The other fellows at St. Jim’s were grinding away at Latin.
1925		S. Lewis Arrowsmith 98: Grinding at examinations.
1927		(con. 1900s) S. Lewis Elmer Gantry 12: Elmer had not gone out for debating, because of the irritating library-grinding.
1931		P. Stevenson Gospel According to St Luke’s 82: I’ve got to grind on Greek.
1943		G. Marx letter in Groucho Letters (1967) 43: It’s a fine state of affairs when the head comic has to puncture the ear drums of his writers so they can continue to grind out mouldy wheezes for the Pabst brewery.
1948		C.S. Montanye ‘This Murder’s On Me’ in Thrilling Detective June 🌐 He’s a man of extinction. He grinds for Ray Perona.
1958		H.S. Thompson letter 6 Jan. in Proud Highway (1997) 96: I plan to find a place of my own and really grind out the copy.
1966		(con. 1958) R. Farina Been Down So Long (1972) 25: It’s the advanced courses give you trouble [...] Got to grind all the time.
1971–2		C. Shafer ‘Catheads [...] and Cho-Cho Sticks’ in Abernethy Bounty of Texas (1990) 205: grind, v. – to work hard.
1989		P. Munro Sl. U.
1997		Simon & Burns Corner (1998) 92: When he was sixteen and still grinding it at the factory, he met a thirteen-year-old girl [...] named Roberta.
2001		Source Aug. 131: The boss will front you that deal and put you on your feet, because if they don’t believe in you and you ain’t grinding right, the boss ain’t gonna front you nothing.
2007		UGK ‘Gravy’ 🎵 We grind to eat, and eat to live.
2012		DJ Khaled ‘They Ready’ 🎵 You know it don’t stop, grindin ’round that clock.
2015		J. Spades ‘Know Dat’ 🎵 So while I’m on the roads I stay grimey (stay grinding).
2020		G. Krauze What They Was 90: They want you to submit. Grind hard to fill someone else’s pockets more than your own.

(b) to cause someone to work hard; thus grinder, a hard taskmaster.

1840		Flash Mirror 4: The Flea Trap [...] Kept by Tim O’Mullighan, known as the Slashing Grinder.
1850		Fast Man 6:1 n.p.: Mr. Henry Harris, the manager of the establishment—surnamed ‘The Grinder,’ from his arbitrary treatment of those beneath him.
1869		T. Taylor New Men & Old Acres 8: Lil.: I’ve been spending the hour since I was up, in grinding him in his English history.
1882		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 3 June 10/1: [H]ow sad It was to leave his money bags after screwing and pinching and grinding so many years to accumulate them.
1896		W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 20: grind [...] 2. v.t. To cause to work hard.
1900		E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words & Phrases’ in DN II:i 39: grind, v. To cause to work hard.

(c) to devote an unreasonable amount of time and effort to one’s studies.

1857		T. Hughes Tom Browns School-Days 261: The thing to find out [...] is how long one ought to grind at a sentence without looking at the crib .
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 151: GRIND, to work up for an examination, to cram with a grinder.
1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. [as cit. 1860].
1886		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 27 Mar. 14/2: The eldest [...] is grinding out law.
1881-2		T.B. Reed Fifth Form at St Dominic’s (1890) 184: The disorderly idlers [...] might not want to grind, but others did.
1896		W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 20: grind 1.v.t. and i. To study very hard; to work at anything steadily, with concentration, and with little relaxation.
1900		E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words & Phrases’ in DN II:i 39: grind, v. To devote an unreasonable amount of time and study, with or without commensurate results.
1925		P.A, Rockwell intro. to War Letters of Kiffin Yates Rockwell (2008) xvii: He was bright enough not to have to grind in order to learn his lessons, and had plenty of time to mix with the other students.
1962		W.R. Burnett Widow Barony 14: He not only didn’t look like a lawyer he wasn’t one really—had always hated it, even when he was grinding away in night school.

(d) to tire, to exhaust; to annoy.

1872		‘Mark Twain’ Roughing It 243: What grinds me is that that Morgan hangs on there and won’t move.
1900		E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words & Phrases’ in DN II:i 39: grind, v. To be distasteful or burdensome.

(e) (US Und.) of a confidence man, to devote a great deal of time to persuading a potential victim.

1933

Ersine Und. and Prison Sl.

(f) (US drugs) to sell drugs.

1993		Del the Funky Homosapien ‘No More Worries’ 🎵 I remember when I used to grind a few indo sacks at my wack sr. high school.
2003		Simon & Burns ‘Storm Warnings’ Wire ser. 2 ep. 10 [TV script] We got permission to grind in these here towers.

(a) to ridicule, to satirize.

1896		W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 20: grind 1. v. To ridicule or satirize, usually by means of personal jokes in student publications.
1900		E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words & Phrases’ in DN II:i 39: grind, v. To ridicule or satirize.

(b) (US) to tout a carnival sideshow; thus grindman n., a talker n. (1)

1920		T. Thursday ‘Fall of the Wise’ in Top-Notch 1 Apr. 🌐 I could have the two grinders grind in a few, but that kind of work would be too slow, and the old dimes wouldn’t come in fast enough.
1934		Weseen Dict. Amer. Sl. 179: [Circus & Carnival] 160: To shout the praises of a circus or a show in an effort to draw patronage; the shouting that is so done.
1951		D.P. Mannix Sword-Swallower 62: That gee’s a grindman who thinks he’s a talker. But being a good grind man isn’t as easy as it looks.
2012		W. Keyser ‘Carny Lingo’ in http://goodmagic.com 🌐 After the ‘turn’ the bally talker might [...] even hand the microphone to a [...] ‘grind man’ who would, as they say, ‘grind’: continue the sense of urgency.