Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Grain or a quantity of grain for grinding.
- n. Ground grain.
- idiom. (one's) Something that can be used to advantage.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. 1. A grinding: in the quotation used of the gnashing of the teeth.
- n. That which is ground; corn to be ground; grain carried to the mill to be ground separately for its owner.
- n. The amount ground at one time; the grain carried to the mill for grinding at one time.
- n. Hence Material for an occasion; a supply or provision.
- n. Material for one brewing. See the extract.
- n. A given size of rope or yarn, as determined by the amount of material. The common grist of rope is a circumference of 3 inches, with 20 yarns in each of the 3 strands.
Wiktionary
- n. grain that is to be ground in a mill
- n. obsolete a group of bees
- n. colloquial, obsolete supply; provision
- n. A given size of rope, common grist being a rope three inches in circumference, with twenty yarns in each of the three strands.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Ground corn; that which is ground at one time; as much grain as is carried to the mill at one time, or the meal it produces.
- n. Supply; provision.
- n. In rope making, a given size of rope,
common grist being a rope three inches in circumference, with twenty yarns in each of the three strands.
WordNet 3.0
- n. grain intended to be or that has been ground
Etymologies
- From Middle English grist, gryst, from Old English grist, gyrst ("the action of grinding, corn for grinding, gnashing"), from a derivative of Proto-Germanic *gredanan (“to crunch”), from Proto-Indo-European *ghrēu- (“to rub, grind”). Cognate with Old Saxon gristgrimmo ("gnashing of the teeth"), German Griesgram ("a grumbler, a grouch, peevishness, misery"), Old English gristel ("gristle"). More at gristle. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old English grīst; see ghrendh- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The existence of the pool first became public last week when an email announcing the 2011 results was forwarded to an environmental website called grist.org.”
“The miller, therefore, takes toll of the grist, which is another source of seignorial revenue, although not a very great one, for the toll is, excepting the miller's thumb rights, not very large.”
“The crushed malt, called grist, is then mixed with hot water and left to stand so the starch can be converted into malt sugars.”
“The former president turned to a few general issues, saying he hoped to provide "grist" for the mills of the netroots.”
Ari Melber: Bill Clinton Heralds Blogs and Answers Heckler at Netroots Convention
“That takes care of the "grist" part of the strategy: Obama is going to be attacked, and every attack becomes an opportunity to get the attention he needs to reveal himself to the American people.”
“Thence the ground malt, or "grist" as it is now called, passes to the _Grist Hopper_, and from the latter to the _Mashing Machine_, in which it is intimately mixed with hot water from the _Hot Liquor Vessel_.”
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 "Brescia" to "Bulgaria"
“There was very little that was not "grist" which came to the "mill" of”
The Moving Picture Girls at Sea or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real
“I should like to do is to examine this grinding process rather carefully, -- to gain, if possible, some definite notion of the kind of grist we should like to produce, and then to see how the machinery may be made to produce this grist, and in what proportions we must mix the material that we pour into the hopper in order to gain the desired result.”
“Lucien had dried a fresh "grist" of the tea leaves, and a cheering cup followed; and then the party all sat around their log-fire, while each of them detailed the history of his experience since parting with the others.”
“Lucien had dried a fresh "grist" of the tea-leaves, and a cheering cup followed; and then the party all sat around their log-fire, while each of them detailed the history of his experience since parting with the others.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘grist’.
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Beer and Brewing
Words about beer and the making of it.
airlock, bung, carboy, diversol, hops, mashtun, beer, sparge, trub, wort, malt, malt liquor and 184 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11250 more...
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Yazhinni Spelling bee
tongue, stallion, scruple, salinity, schedule, rouge, populist, Permian, perspire, pasteurize, multitude, mournful and 227 more...
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common UA vocab. in US
Interesting, there is a traditional vocabulary of an Ukrainian, that differs from vocabulary of average American. It would be nice to explore it.
jackdaw, incongruous, cassock, vivid, magpie, humdrum, amongst, wonder, wandering, wheedling, wheedle, osseous and 368 more...
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Wort to the wise
Brewing terms
wort, gruit, metheglin, mead, perry, mulsum, finings, irish moss, malt, hops, morat, melomel and 43 more...
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slumry's Words
cattywampus, ingratiate, lackadaisical, exactitude, exfoliate, fulminate, circumnavigation, circuitous, debride, sidle, sequester, chicory and 1002 more...
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Vocabulary
Words I come across while reading.
talus, echelon, onanistic, cabochon, avocation, charnel, moue, portentous, prolixity, astringent, hoary, patina and 165 more...
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wickedwitch's list
lll
alit, plinth, eclat, diaphanous, portico, nival, daedal, apse, fossa, pellet, avail, midge and 143 more...
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ktrey's wordlist
Words that I like.
Many may be lexicographically impotent due to a lack of citations and definition. Hopefully I'll be able to rectify this eventually.velleity, dispositive, bloviate, bibulous, fungible, concupiscence, avuncular, carnaptious, thrawn, hypocoristic, diegesis, lagniappe and 928 more...
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Words to Learn
colloquium, resilient, ruminate, missive, sylvan, indefatigable, preclude, prowess, quiescent, caustic, verdant, specter and 119 more...
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Words that were new to me
but now they're not because I looked them up. In cases of polysemy or homography, *of course* it was the oddest meaning that stumped me. ;)
Procrustean bed, idem sonans, hob, backcap, quango, cheap-jack, pantechnicon, churrigueresco, chopfallen, maritorious, supererogation, catimini and 212 more...
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Stumbled Words
A list of words that I stumbled upon while reading.
penumbra, prolix, propitious, resplendence, sepulchral, Weltschmerz, apparition, brigand, probity, chalice, paroxysm, pallor and 160 more...
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soph2's Words
serendipity, audacity, groak, petrichor, lethologica, loganamnosis, agnuopia, dysania, dysphagia, neologism, incredulity, harbinger and 246 more...
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delcj's Words
gavotte, perverse, tchotchkes, schmoop, divisural, triplicostate, albatross, snuggery, virgule, separatrix, solidus, tetrodotoxin and 116 more...
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Grounded Words
an Eckhartian exercise of grinding
grind, grist, refrain, ground, grit, mitochondrion, groats, grout, gruel, great, gruesome, gravel and 162 more...
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amber words
amber words is the term I use for words that are all but fossilized, in the sense that their use is always in the context of a single expression. Examples include caboodle, dudgeon, umbrage
sanctum, akimbo, amok, riddance, druthers, trove, caboodle, immemorial, blithering, dudgeon, swaddling, askance and 110 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for grist.
zowie "Instead of serving as an alarm warning of the dangers of uncoordinated military raids, the tragedy gave further grist to the opponents of the Hashemite Kingdom, who argued that the regime was responsible for what had happened at Samu." http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/his_periods3.html Sep 9, 2012
dailyword Captain Jack used this word in Master and Commander when he and the doctor were arguing about his obsession with capturing Napoleon. Jun 9, 2012
jwjarvis impersonal schools bureaucracies and dehumanizing schools from being built, mills for which our children are little more than grist. Oct 2, 2010
skipvia A swarm of bees
Nov 15, 2007
icco heh, this was in wired. http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/magazine/15-09/mf_pennyarcade Aug 28, 2007