grist to the mill
English
editEtymology
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Noun
editgrist to the mill (uncountable)
- (idiomatic, chiefly UK) Alternative form of grist for the mill
- 1875, Anthony Trollope, chapter 58, in The Way We Live Now, London: Chapman and Hall, […]:
- What evil will not a rival say to stop the flow of grist to the mill of the hated one?
- 1999, Simon Blackburn, Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy (Oxford University Press paperback, →ISBN, ch. 7 section 6: "Kant’s Revolution", pp. 258–259:
- This might all seem grist to Berkeley’s mill. Berkeley himself knew that we interpret our experience in spatio-temporal, objective terms. But he thought we had to ‘speak with the vulgar but think with the learned’: in other words, learn to regard that interpretation as a kind of façon de parler, rather than the description of a real, independent, objective world.
Usage notes
edit- Often found in the expression it's all grist to the mill and variations thereof.