grinding wheel

English

Noun

grinding wheel (plural grinding wheels)

1. A wheel composed of an abrasive compound and used for various grinding and abrasive machining operations.
2. (figurative, by extension) Something that wears down or harms by attrition.
   • 2021, Trevor George Gardner, “By Any Means: A Philosophical Frame for Rulemaking Reform in Criminal Law”, in Yale Law Journal Forum‎^[1], page 800:

     A competing branch argues, in turn, that crime policy—policing policy in particular—has become more punitive given the heightened power of penal bureaucrats together with the diminished influence of the persons and populations most often subject to the grinding wheels of penal administration.