Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) (US) a swindle.

1871

L.H. Bagg Four Years at Yale 45: Grind, [...] a swindle.

(b) (US campus) a satirist.

1889

Century Dict. III.

(c) (US campus) a joke, usu. personal.

1878		H.O. Flipper Colored Cadet at West Point 53: ‘A gag,’ ‘Grin,’ ‘Grind.’ — Something witty, a repartee.
1896		W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 20: grind […] 2. n. A joke or take-off, usually personal, which appears in student publications.
1902		Ade Forty Modern Fables 119: A Husband worked up many Grinds on the Better Half.
1905		‘Central Connecticut Word-List’ in DN III:i 10: grind, n. A hit upon any one. ‘He got off a good grind on his brother.’.

(d) (US tramp) patter used to lure customers into a sideshow or similar attraction.

1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 91: Grind. – The speech or ‘spiel’ delivered in front of a tent show or cheap auction to attract attention to the proceedings inside.
1953		W. Hopson ‘The Ice Man Came’ in Thrilling Detective Winter 🌐 Ace wore diamonds and lots of them on a dime grind that didn’t rate the wearing of lots of ice.

(e) (US Und.) the ‘salestalk’ that is used to persuade a confidence man’s victim; in carnival use the climax of the ‘bally’ that brings an audience into the show (see cite 2012).

1933		Ersine Und. and Prison Sl.
1949		F. Brown Dead Ringer 43: The two ticket boxes to the right of the platform were selling tickets like mad, without even a grind going on.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 87/1: Grind. The confidence man’s or panhandler’s persuasive and energetic line of talk; grifting in an area in which the victims have little money and yield only to great pressure.
2012		W. Keyser ‘Carny Lingo’ in http://goodmagic.com 🌐 Grind — The compelling and rhythmic verbal conclusion of the "outside talker’s" spiel, meant to move the patrons into the show.

(a) an act of sexual intercourse.

1836		‘Bill Stroke’Em’ in Gentleman’s Private Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 380: Then quickly threw her on the ground, / Resolved to have a grind.
1865		‘Grinding Old Women Young’ in Rambler’s Flash Songster 10: Oh, the tinker’s wife dropt in, / Dropt in for to have a grind.
1870		Cythera’s Hymnal 26: He stirred up Eve with another joyous grind.
1884		‘Experiences of a Cunt Philosopher’ in Randiana 115: I cannot recall to mind any wench, even one, having her first grind, who showed such arse power as Zoe.
1896		Sheaves from an Old Escritoire 35: I cannot go many weeks without having what Tom, the carter, used to call — a good grind.
1928		Bessie Smith ‘Empty Bed Blues Part 1’ 🎵 Lord he can grind my coffee / Cause he has a brand new grind.
1935		Kokomo Arnold ‘Let Your Money Talk’ 🎵 To get your sausage grind your sausage grind / If he can’t get it in the front door / He don’t want it behind / You want your ashes hauled.
c.1940		‘Christopher Columbo’ in Bold (1979) 52: For I’ve a mind to have a grind / And check out your credentials.
1945		‘Cats on the Rooftops’ in Mess Songs & Rhymes of the RAAF 2: The poor rhinocerous, so it appears, / Never gets a grind in a thousand years.
1956		‘Little Jim’ in ‘Count P. Vicarion’ Bawdy Ballads XXIX: He went to live with Milly where he began to find / That all his pals were queuing up for what they called a ‘grind’.
1965		E. Bond Saved Scene ii: I wouldn’t mind a bit a grind for you.
1973		(con. 1940s–60s) Hogbotel & ffuckes ‘Cats on the Rooftops’ in Snatches and Lays 26: The poor rhinoceros, so it appears, / Never gets a grind in a thousand years.
1999		(con. 1979–80) A. Wheatle Brixton Rock (2004) 29: Yeah, man, that will be a wicked grind.
2001		(con. 1981) A. Wheatle East of Acre Lane 139: One of Wong’s crew t’ump up one of Blue’s whores cos she wouldn’t gi’ ’im a free grind.

(b) a person (woman or gay man) regarded as a sex object, further qualified as a good grind, bad grind; thus a promiscuous young woman (cit. 1959).

1870		Cythera’s Hymnal 80: A youth who seduced a poor lighterman, / Said, ‘I’d much sooner fuck than I’d fight a man, / And although, Sir, I find / You a very good grind, / I must say I’ve had a much tighter man’.
c.1900		‘Ramrod’ Nocturnal Meeting 79: Boasting how he had tamed me, and telling me I would be as good a grind as Tottie.
1959		W. Brown Teen-Age Mafia 83: For all he knew she could be a two-bit grind, a regular cement mixer.
1961		W. Brown Girls on the Rampage 116: Between the ‘two-bit grind’ and the hundred-dollar-a-night party girl lies a vast social difference.

(c) (orig. US black) a striptease performance.

1940		in G. Legman Rationale of the Dirty Joke (1972) I 103: During one of the stripper’s bumps and grinds the boy shouts, ‘Hey. Pop, somebody is pushing me off your lap!’.
1953		S. Bellow Augie March (1996) 225: Telling smokehouse stories while the goofy audience waited for the naked star to come out and begin the grinds.
1959		H. Salisbury Shook-Up Generation (1961) 29: The fish is a slow, quiet hip movement resembling a burlesque house grind.
1971		N. Cassady First Third 19: I recall better other Dime grinds seen at the Zaza during the next few years.

(d) the rubbing of one’s body, esp. the genital area, against one’s partner while dancing; thus similar movements by a solo dancer or singer; esp. in phr. bump(s) and grind(s).

1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 27: Doing grinds and bumps all over the place, throwing it around the way it should be thrown around in only one place.
1953		Kramer & Karr Teen-Age Gangs 180: ‘Yea, yea!’ Jesse James shouted, and he did a grind and a bump.
1962		C. Clausen I Love You Honey, But the Season’s Over 177: All those bumps and grinds must have worn her out.
1965		H. Rhodes Chosen Few (1966) 54: Once, after a turn, he tried a slow, discreet grind. She responded.
1974		(con. 1960s) R. Price Wanderers 28: He pushed his knee between her legs and she responded with a nice rotating grind.
1988		G. Tate ‘A R Kane’ in Flyboy in the Buttermilk (1992) 110: Music about sexual love and violence [...] for all those black angels gone to heaven who don’t know how to stop doing the dirty grind.
2009		R. Milward Ten Storey Love Song 19: [S]he pulled Johnnie onto the dancefloor for a bit of a grind.

(a) hard, continuous, wearing work, esp. academic work.

1850		Poem before the Iadma of Harvard College in Hall (1856) 12: I must say ’t is a grind — (perchance I spoke too loud).
1861		T. Hughes Tom Brown at Oxford (1880) 53: Boating [is] such a grind.
1871		L.H. Bagg Four Years at Yale 45: Grind, a hard and unpleasant task, an imposition, a swindle.
1887		‘A Plain Woman’ Poor Nellie I 240: He had a headache, and was not up to his usual ‘grind’.
1891		‘’Arry on Arrius’ Punch 26 Dec. 303/1: I know ’twas a dooce of a grind / For poor Magsworth to earn fifteen quid.
1904		H. Lawson ‘The Last Rev.’ in Roderick (1967–9) II 62: In the dens of Grind and Heartbreak, in the streets of Never-Rest.
1911		E. Ferber Dawn O’Hara (1925) 41: Seven years of newspaper grind have taught me the fallacy of trying to write by the inspiration method.
1912		A. Brazil Fourth Form Friendship 13: ‘School isn’t all games, I can tell you [...] There’s a jolly lot of grind to be gone through’.
1923		H.C. Witwer Fighting Blood 354: The training grind is more monotonous than monotony itself.
1935		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 558: Studs motioned to the waitress [...] pointed to an empty coffee cup. Needed it to wake up for the afternoon grind.
1946		H.A. Smith Rhubarb 131: I’ll get down to the old grind. The daily ordeal.
1955		J.P. Donleavy Ginger Man (1958) 47: The laundry girls will take me mind off the awful grind of studying.
1960		I. Freeman Out of the Burning (1961) 213: The long grind paid off at last.
1976		N. Thornburg Cutter and Bone (2001) 156: He endured the pain of the daily five-mile grind just to stay in shape.
1982		G.V. Higgins Patriot Game (1985) 37: You got some whore lined up for nooners I assume, and then after the bump it’s back to the grind?
1998		I. Welsh Filth 199: Then it’s back to the grind.
2000		W. Shaw Westsiders 270: Cocaine and weed. It’s about the everyday grind.
2010		K. Richards Life 282: You’ve got to give him something he’ll really enjoy. Not just the same old grind.
2020		A. Shrier Irreversible Damage 157: Ivy League schools today are much more of a grind than they were a generation ago—kids never leaving the library, pulling all-nighters not only in exam period, but all semester long.

(b) (US campus) a demanding instructor.

1896		W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 20: grind [...] 4. n. An instructor who demands an excessive amount of work from his students.
1900		E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 39: grind, n. An instructor who demands an excessive amount of work.

(c) (US campus) a demanding course.

1896		W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 20: grind [...] 5. n. A course requiring an unusual amount of hard study.
1900		E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 39: grind, n. A course requiring an unusual amount of study.

(d) (US campus, also greasy grind) a student who studies constantly.

1874		Harvard Crimson 9 Jan. 🌐 The inveterate ‘grind’ may pursue his favorite study all day long with no interruption from noisy neighbors. [Ibid.] 13 Feb. The student who studies only for marks, the conventional ‘grind,’ is one of the poorest products of a college.
1889		Century Dict.
1893		W.K. Post Harvard Stories 11: Come now, old grind, do take a day off.
1895		J.S. Wood Yale Yarns 1: Even the ‘greasy grinds’ hardly felt it in their hearts to begin the evening’s cram.
1902		Ade Forty Modern Fables 261: If William had not been a Grind at College probably he would not have proved to be such a Help around the Office.
1911		E.B. Morris Freshman in College Comedies 12: Stevens. Now isn’t that just like a greasy grind? — No more class spirit than a fried tomato.
1915		M.G. Hayden ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 199: grind, a student who sacrifices all for study. ‘Mary is a regular grind’.
1924		P. Marks Plastic Age 80: No one except a few notorious grinds studied that night.
1931		P. Stevenson Gospel According to St Luke’s 26: Naw, he’s just a greasy grind!
1945		Yank (Far East edn) 24 Mar. 18/2–3: Some of today’s teen-agers – pleasantly not many – talk the strange new language of ‘sling swing.’ In the bright lexicon of the good citizens of tomorrow [...] A grind is a ‘book beater’.
1959		A. Zugsmith Beat Generation 71: Belmont hoped his son wouldn’t become a greasy grind.
1965		G.D. Kelsey Racism and [...] Christian Understanding 85: [...] all contempt is owing the out-group Abes for their being sharp, cunning. [...] The trouble with the Jew is that he is a greasy grind.
1970		P. Roth My Life as a Man (1974) 107: She was a hairy, hawk-nosed, undernourished-looking little ‘grind’.
1979		B. Gutcheon New Girls (1982) 257: They know a girl with a record of leadership at Miss Pratt’s will offer them just as much as some greasy grind with straight A’s from the local high school.
1987		in H.L. Horowitz Campus Life 179: By senior year, if I was still a ‘grind,’ it was no longer for consolation [...] for me it was unadulterated rapture.
2004		G. Weigel Letters to a Young Catholic 2: With the possible exception of grinds aiming to score 800 on the SAT verbals [etc].

(e) anything wearing, monotonous, exhausting, debilitating.

1870		London Figaro 28 July n.p.: The world is a wearisome grind, love, Nor shirk we our turn at the wheel [F&H].
1880		One and All 27 Mar. 207: Soul-weary of life’s horrid grind, I long to come to thee [F&H].
1908		C. Hamilton Diana of Dobson’s in Morgan Years Between (1994) 16: I shall go back, I suppose – back to the treadmill grind.
1910		O. Johnson Varmint 143: Here we are back at the same old grind.
1921		D.L. Sayers Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (1977) 97: It’s a dreadful grind, Wimsey.
1935		H. McCoy They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? in Four Novels (1983) 17: I had about two minutes more of rest before the next two-hour grind.
1950		N. Cassady letter in Charters (1993) 198: Off to the poolhall, back to the old grind.
1968		N. Heard Howard Street 78 : I been thinkin’ ’bout it a long time now. I’m tired of this grind.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 390: It’s going to be a fucking grind.

(f) a problem.

1883

T.B. Reed Willoughby Captains (1887) 80: ‘Jolly grind that jar bursting up, though,’ said Philpot, with a troubled countenance.

(g) (US und.) a prison sentence.

1933

C. Himes ‘Prison Mass’ in Coll. Stories 165: The judge had given him five years to laugh it off. And then, when he had pulled that grind [etc].

(h) attrib. use of sense 3e .

1978

L. Bangs in Psychotic Reactions (1988) 269: A guy that breaks his ass and balls and whatever else he’s got for a solid fucking decade on the worst grind circuit in the world.

(i) (US campus) a tiring or boring person or task.

1900

E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 39: grind, n. 6. A person who is tiresome. 7. A disagreeable task.

(j) in non-academic context, a hard worker, a daily worker.

1916		L. Pound ‘Word-List From Nebraska’ in DN IV:iv 275: gun, n. A ‘grind’ who is popular.
1925		S. Lewis Arrowsmith 89: A grind like me, I have to go on working without a single person to give me sympathy.
1947		‘F. Bonnamy’ Self Portrait of Murder (1951) 121: Just a cheerful grind.
1951		S. Lewis World So Wide 62: Lone lady grinds don’t often get invited to dinner.

(k) (US) a career, a way of life.

1943

C.S. Montanye ‘Little Pieces’ in Exciting Detective Mar. 🌐 ‘What’s his grind?’ Marge asked [...] ‘Search me’.

(l) (Irish) in pl., extra tuition.

2000		P. Howard Miseducation of Ross O’Carroll-Kelly (2004) 18: The old man found out I’ve been, like, skipping my grinds.
2005		P. Howard Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress 51: I’m doing some extra grinds. I need to get an A1 in chemistry.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 174: How much school and grinds did you miss.
2021		L. McInerney Rules of Revelation 95: Her parents couldn’t stretch to the grinds and summer Gaeltacht courses.

(m) (Irish) extra tuition.