against the grain

Get the thinkers out into the open like Vidal and Buckley, a really radical idea, against the grain.

2015 August 1, Ed Vulliamy, quoting Robert Gordon, “‘Don’t call me a crypto-Nazi!’ The lost heart of political debate”, in The Guardian

For Nabiullina, the developments unpick almost a decade of work going against the grain of Putin’s increasing global isolation by opening up the economy.

2022 March 5, Richard Partington, “Russia’s central bank head ‘is mourning for her economy’”, in The Guardian

Say, you chose him / More after our commandment than as guided / By your own true affections, and that your minds, / Preoccupied with what you rather must do / Than what you should, made you against the grain / To voice him consul: lay the fault on us.

c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)

Indeed, when I interviewed Ken Skates, the Welsh Cabinet Member for Transport and North Wales, for my Calling All Stations podcast, he suggested (rightly) that the electrification of 170km (106 miles) of Valleys line ^([sic]) "was no mean feat in less than ten years". Given the stalled electrification of England's railways, notably the Midland Main Line, he has a point. This project went completely against the grain of Treasury thinking, which Skates reckons has been a crucial barrier to preventing investment in less populated areas.

2026 March 18, Christian Wolmar, “Wales sets example with long-term rail strategy”, in RAIL, number 1057, page 42

In all ordinary processes of grinding, the friction of the rapidly revolving millstones against the grain, or even of the stones against each other, develops a large amount of heat, so that the crushed wheat comes from the stones quite hot

1879, R. C. Kedzie, “The Adulteration and Deterioration of Food”, in Annual Report of the National Board of Health, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 138