grist

plural grists

1. countableuncountableGrain that is to be ground in a mill.

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   That it will, however, cause the subscribers to wish, in their minds, for many oaths to fly about, which is a heinous crime, and to lay stratagems to try the patience of men of all sorts; to put them upon the swearing strain, in order to bring grist to their own mill, which is a crime still more enormous; and that therefore, for fear of these evil consequences, the passing of such an act is not consistent with the really extraordinary and tender conscience of a true modern politician.

   1720, Thomas Hope [pseudonym; Jonathan Swift], “An Essay on English Bubbles”, in The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, volume 8

   Ancient nomads, wishing to ward off the evening chill and enjoy a meal around a campfire, had to collect wood and then spend time and effort coaxing the heat of friction out from between sticks to kindle a flame. With more settled people, animals were harnessed to capstans or caged in treadmills to turn grist into meal.

   2013 July–August, Henry Petroski, “Geothermal Energy”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4

2. collectivecountabledateduncountableA group of bees.

   Swarming like a grist of bees...

   2024, Kylie Orr, The Eleventh Floor, HQ Fiction

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   A grist of bees is somehow leaking through the insufficient squares of the bug screen

   2023, Kenan Orhan, ““Three Parts in Which Emre Kills His Daughters””, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)

3. colloquialcountableobsoleteuncountableSupply; provision.

   Matter, as wise logicians say, / Cannot without a form subsist; / And form, say I, as well as they, / Must fail if matter brings no grist.

   1719, Jonathan Swift, “The Progress of Beauty”, in The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., volume 1

4. countableuncountableartsA given size of rope, common grist being a rope three inches in circumference, with twenty yarns in each of the three strands.
5. abbreviationcountableellipsisfigurativelyuncountableEllipsis of grist for the mill.

   True stories are embellished, the casts of fictional dramas stuffed with unlikely non-actors. All is grist to what [Werner] Herzog calls “ecstatic truth”.

   2023 November 11, Danny Leigh, “Living on the edge”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 10

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   The judge needed a case with the potential for great emotional impact to gain media coverage for his political career. He was running for judgeship on the Nevada Supreme Court. Nicky and I were in the wrong place at the wrong time. We were available, vulnerable, and expendable for political grist.

   1985 August 24, Robert Butler, “Sex More Punished Than Murder”, in Gay Community News, volume 13, number 7, page 5

   “It increasingly appears that humanity is a biological bootloader for digital superintelligence.” Meaning we humans are nothing but grist for Grok, the AI service he owns.

   2025 April 13, Naomi Klein, Astra Taylor, “The rise of end times fascism”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

present singular third person grists · participle present gristing · participle past gristed · past gristed

1. transitiveTo grind in a mill.

   […] it cleaned out two hundred and ten bushels called screenings; the balance was sold, gristed and used for seed.

   1892, Annual report of the Department of Indian Affairs, page 70

   1 more example

   […] and another mill is erecting on the same stream near Sparrow Lake, to which a run of stones for gristing will be added.

   1861, Sessional Papers of the Parliament of the Province of Canada