mill
Definitions
General English
- noun a small machine for turning seeds into powder
Agriculture
- noun a factory where a substance is crushed to make a powder, especially one for making flour from the dried grains of cereals
Cars & Driving
- verb to shape or cut metal
Construction
- To shape metal or wood to a desired dimension by a machine that removes excess material.
Food
- An implement used to reduce a solid to a fine powder, as with pepper, salt crystals, coffee, spices, etc.
Publishing
- noun a building where a particular type of material is processed or made
Travel
- verb to whisk or shake something such as cream or chocolate until it is foamy
Origin & History of “mill”
Mill is one of a large family of English words that go back ultimately to the Indo-European base *mel-, *mol-, *ml-, denoting ‘grind’. It includes meal ‘flour’, mollify, mollusc, mould ‘earth’, and (via the extended form *meld-, *mold-) melt and mild. One particular subset of the family comes from closely related Latin sources: the verb molere ‘grind’ has produced emolument and ormolu (18th c.) (etymologically ‘ground gold’); the noun mola ‘grindstone’ has given molar (16th c.) and (via a later sense ‘flour mixed with salt, sprinkled on sacrificial victims’) immolate (16th c.); and late Latin molīnus ‘grindstone’, which replaced classical Latin mola, was borrowed into Old English as mylen, from which we get modern English mill.
