Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a tooth; usu. in pl., the teeth [their function and f. 14C SE grinder, a molar; the term moved into sl.].

1598		J. Hall Virgidemiarum (1599) Bk VI 103: Her grinders like two chalk-stones in a mill, Which shall with time and wearing waxe as ill.
1637		N. Whiting Albino and Bellama 136: Lend me some cloth, by times harsh grinders gnawn And I will be a Tinker in each poynt, My sister must have ragges.
1653		Urquhart (trans.) Rabelais Bk IV, Author’s Prologue: The devil of one musty crust of a brown George the poor boys had to scour their grinders with.
1674		Head Canting Academy (2nd edn).
1693		Dryden Juvenal X 205: One, who at sight of Supper open’d wide His jaws before, and Whetted Grinders try’d.
1700		T. Brown Amusements Serious and Comical in Works (1744) III 91: If you do but yawn, the other knaves will be examining your grinders, depopulate your mouths, and make you old before your time.
1707		J. Dunton Bumography 18: Or were her Lips ill hung, or set, And all her Grinders Black as Jet!
1719		A. Smith Lives of Most Notorious Highway-men, etc. (1926) 206: Grinders, teeth. The cove has rum grinders, i.e., the rogue has excellent teeth.
1725		New Canting Dict.
1737		H. Carey Dragon of Wantley II i: I’ll make you change your Note, / Or drive your grinning Grinders down your Throat.
1740		H. Walpole Correspondence n.p.: A set of gnashing teeth, the grinders very entire [F&H].
1751		Smollett Peregrine Pickle (1964) 259: Making a short pause in the exercise of his grinders, ‘You are surprised (said he) to see me make so much dispatch; but I was extremely hungry’.
1762		Bridges Homer Travestie (1764) II 97: O Grecian princes! what’s the matter, / That thus I hear your grinders chatter?
1771		Foote Maid of Bath in Works (1799) II 225: Only a bit broke off the coral when I was cutting my grinders.
1786		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Bozzy and Piozzi’ Works (1794) I 352: Dear Doctor Johnson lov’d a leg of pork, And hearty on it would his grinders work.
c.1790		‘Luke Caffrey’s Ghost’ Chap Book Songs 3: His face look’d for all the world like de rotten rump of a Thomas-street blue-arse, and his grinders rattled in his jaw-wags.
1801		C. Dibdin Yngr Song Smith 115: The churchwarden’s got a wide mouth, / And his grinders are like a sledge hammer.
1809		B.H. Malkin (trans.) Adventures of Gil Blas (1822) I 143: He considered this food [...] as most amenable to the grinders.
1819		‘One of the Fancy’ Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress 22: He proceeded to serve an ejectment, in style, / Upon GEORGY’S front grinders, which damag’d his smile.
1819		T. Moore ‘The Milling Match’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 87: While from his gob the guggling claret gush’d / And lots of grinders, from their sockets crush’d.
1829		D. Jerrold Black-Ey’d Susan II iii: There was Billy [a shark] along-side, with his three decks of grinders.
1832		Spirit of the Times (NY) 11 Feb. 1/3: I swallowed quarts of ague drops, / But ache my grinder would.
1834		‘A Grand Turn-Out’ in Randy Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) I 188: Ragged Jack’s swallowed his grinders.
1836		T. Haliburton Clockmaker I 171: He stripped his teeth and showed his grinders, like a bulldog.
1841		‘Jonathan Brown’ Dublin Comic Songster 227: But he wasn’t like one of your dentists in town, / Who for drawing a grinder would charge you a crown!
1846		Censor (London) 4 Jan. 6/2: [A] dentist, in a fashionable street [...] charging one guinea for the removal of a troublesome grinder.
1847		Bell’s Life in Sydney 6 Feb. 2/6: The youth brought his ‘grinders’ to play upon Ikin’s person, and bit him severely.
1855		(con. 1824) Fights for the Championship 94: Ward [...] caught Sampson on the pudding-trap, rattling his grinders in a very musical manner.
1855		Broadway Belle (NY) 17 Sept. n.p.: Those grinders [...] the sight is a caution to crocodiles.
1867		J. Greenwood Unsentimental Journeys 4: Having had in my time two grinders extracted whose decay in no way shook their attachment to me.
1873		R. Broughton Nancy II 157: A whole complete new set – thirty-two individual grinders!
1884		R.C. Hartranft Journal of Solomon Sidesplitter 177: The doctor took a peep at his grinders.
1887		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Oct. 13/1: Amorous actor [...] owing to impecuniosity has to arrange with friend to visit the ‘motshkin shop’ to raise funds for the purchase of a new set of grinders.
1891		F.D. Srygley Seventy Years in Dixie 106: A regular tooth-puller would fasten a stout string or cord, to the disaffected grinder.
1900		Sporting Times 26 May 4/1: The teeth came to Jack a considerable time before the money which was necessary to keep those grinders employed.
1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 24 Sept. 4/7: Whatever beast, now dead, / With my girl’s grinders bit.
1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 122: We used a box of matches locating that punky grinder.
1915		Bulletin (Sydney) 11 Dec. 17/2: He spek-u-lates next in a toothbrush, an’ useter scrub ’is grinders ev’ry ev’ning at the waterhole.
1926		E.P. Norwood Other Side of the Circus 63: It’s the grinders that must be looked after most.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks 49/1: Grinders, teeth.
1935		Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 5: Grinders: Teeth.
1936		Sun. Times (Perth) 21 June 11/2: Be your grinders good or ,/ They’ll be less distended tummies, / When we taste Sunday stew!
1940		S. Longstreet Decade 25: They were frankly store teeth – big, white, perfect. [...] Pete could fool the rest of the folks about his grinders, but the Old One knew.
1944		P. Kendall Dict. Service Sl. n.p.: grinders . . . teeth.
1946		Sun (Sydney) 13 Oct. 15/2: A grown-up plat’s got no grinders.

2. a private tutor.

1814		M. Edgeworth Patronage (2004) 34: Put him into the hands of a clever grinder or crammer, and they would soon cram the necessary portion of Latin and Greek into him.
1844		A. Smith Adventures of Mr Ledbury III 194: Gentleman was pronounced by his ‘grinder’ sufficiently crammed to present himself for examination.
1861		Dickens Great Expectations (1992) 180: Mr. Pocket had been educated at Harrow and Cambridge [...] and taken up the calling of a Grinder.
1870		Argus (Melbourne) 11 Feb. 7/2: [M]en who were growing in numbers every year, and the need for whom was likewise growing — namely, those who were known by tbe slang names of ‘grinders’ and ‘coaches’.
1873		Sl. Dict.

3. a highly diligent student.

1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1937–84		Partridge DSUE (1984) 504: ca. 1870–1900.

4. a coarse gesture, which involves placing the tip of one’s thumb on one’s nose and using the other hand to work an imaginary coffee-grinder; the gesture is used to refute what the subject feels is an unjustified attack on their credulity.

1830		‘Bold Irishman’ Collection of Eng. Ballads 91: The bully that threaten’d to bang out my eye, / I tipt him a grinder as I passed by.
1840		London Mag. Feb. 17/2: [H]e was materially assisted by three gentlemen, whom I shall describe as CAPTAIN FORMAL, Mr. NOSE-GRINDER, and Mr. Fox, the lawyer.
[c.1858		J.H. Green Reformed Gambler 138: He added to the flourish of his fingers, by giving his other arm the motion of turning a crank, and keeping time by moving his right foot up and down as long as he was in sight].
1870		Athenaeum 8 Jan. 57/2: He finds himself confronted by a lightly-clad Indian, who salutes him with what street-boys term ‘a grinder’ .

5. (US carnival) a sideshow tout.

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.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 92: Grinder. — The man who ‘grinds.’ A good ‘grinder’ must have more than a voice that can be made to express every nuance of expression; he must be a keen student of human nature, and know just when to stop his ‘grind’ and enter upon the exhortation.
1940		C. Rawson Headless Lady (1987) 28: [In circus jargon] barkers are never called that, but talkers, openers, or grinders.
1953		F. Brown Madball (2019) 29: ‘Talker for, Lieutenant. More specifically grinder for, since a show that operates continuously and without a bally doesn’t require a spiel’.

6. in sexual contexts.

7. (US) a large sandwich made of two slabs of bread cut lengthwise from the loaf and containing a variety of ingredients.

1950		N.Y. Times 31 July 20: [headline] Foot-Long Grinder [...] Mr. Girard...met the ‘grinder’ when a junior engineer in the Connecticut State Highway Department.
1978		Time 4 Dec. 81: That familiar long sandwich crammed with a meal’s worth of edibles — what is it called? In New York it is a hero sandwich; in the South, it is known, unheroically, as a poor boy. Pennsylvanians call it a hoagie, New Englanders a grinder and Floridians a Cuban sandwich.
1983		‘Heat Moon’ Blue Highways 329: I ate a grinder — elsewhere called a hero, hoagie, poorboy, submarine, sub, torpedo, Italian.
2003		Guardian G2 29 Jan. 7: Never embarrass yourself again by asking for a hoagie in Vermont or a grinder in Philadelphia, when what you really want is what they call a hero in Maine or a poor boy in Louisiana (and a sub, pretty much everywhere else).

8. (US) one who works hard and consistently.

2012

S. Blass Pirate for Life 204: [T]hey weren’t guys who were gifted with phenomenal natural talent. But they maxed out their abilities and were ‘grinders’.