What does "mill" mean?
Mill: A machine for grinding or commuting any substance, as grain, by rubbing and crushing it between two hard, rough, or intented surfaces; as, a gristmill, a coffee mill; a bone mill.
Additional senses
- 2.A machine used for expelling the juice, sap, etc., from vegetable tissues by pressure, or by pressure in combination with a grinding, or cutting process; as, a cider mill; a cane mill.
- 3.A machine for grinding and polishing; as, a lapidary mill.
- 4.A common name for various machines which produce a manufactured product, or change the form of a raw material by the continuous repetition of some simple action; as, a sawmill; a stamping mill, etc.
- 5.A building or collection of buildings with machinery by which the processes of manufacturing are carried on; as, a cotton mill; a powder mill; a rolling mill.
- 6.(Die Sinking) A hardened steel roller having a design in relief, used for imprinting a reversed copy of the design in a softer metal, as copper.
- 7.(Mining) (a) An excavation in rock, transverse to the workings, from which material for filling is obtained. (b) A passage underground through which ore is shot.
- 8.A milling cutter. See Illust. under Milling.
- 9.A pugilistic. [Cant] R. D. Blackmore. Edge mill, Flint mill, etc. See under Edge, Flint, etc. -- Mill bar (Iron Works), a rough bar rolled or drawn directly from a bloom or puddle bar for conversion into merchant iron in the mill. -- Mill cinder, slag from a puddling furnace. -- Mill head, the head of water employed to turn the wheel of a mill. -- Mill pick, a pick for dressing millstones. -- Mill pond, a pond that supplies the water for a mill. -- Mill race, the canal in which water is conveyed to a mill wheel, or the current of water which drives the wheel. -- Mill tail, the water which flows from a mill wheel after turning it, or the channel in which the water flows. -- Mill tooth, a grinder or molar tooth. -- Mill wheel, the water wheel that drives the machinery of a mill. -- Roller mill, a mill in which flour or meal is made by crushing grain between rollers. -- Stamp mill (Mining), a mill in which ore is crushed by stamps. -- To go through the mill, to experience the suffering or discipline necessary to bring one to a certain degree of knowledge or skill, or to a certain mental state.
- 10.To reduce to fine particles, or to small pieces, in a mill; to grind; to comminute.
- 11.To shape, finish, or transform by passing through a machine; specifically, to shape or dress, as metal, by means of a rotary cutter.
- 12.To make a raised border around the edges of, or to cut fine grooves or indentations across the edges of, as of a coin, or a screw head; also, to stamp in a coining press; to coin.
- 13.To pass through a fulling mill; to full, as cloth.
- 14.To beat with the fists. [Cant] Thackeray.
- 15.To roll into bars, as steel. To mill chocolate, to make it frothy, as by churning.
- 16.To swim under water; -- said of air-breathing creatures.
Sources
- Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).
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- Published: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00 · Modified: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00