Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Grain or a quantity of grain for grinding.
  • noun Ground grain.
  • idiom ((one's)/the) Something that can be used to advantage.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun 1. A grinding: in the quotation used of the gnashing of the teeth.
  • noun That which is ground; corn to be ground; grain carried to the mill to be ground separately for its owner.
  • noun The amount ground at one time; the grain carried to the mill for grinding at one time.
  • noun Hence Material for an occasion; a supply or provision.
  • noun Material for one brewing. See the extract.
  • noun 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.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun 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.
  • noun Supply; provision.
  • noun 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.
  • noun [Colloq.] all that he has anything to do with is a source of profit.
  • noun [Colloq.] to bring profitable business into one's hands; to be a source of profit.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun grain that is to be ground in a mill
  • noun obsolete a group of bees
  • noun colloquial, obsolete supply; provision
  • noun A given size of rope, common grist being a rope three inches in circumference, with twenty yarns in each of the three strands.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun grain intended to be or that has been ground

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English grīst; see ghrendh- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

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.

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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.

    KansasCity.com: Front Page 2012

  • 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.

    Canada and the Canadians Volume I Richard Henry Bonnycastle 1819

  • The crushed malt, called grist, is then mixed with hot water and left to stand so the starch can be converted into malt sugars.

    Star Tim Walters 2010

  • 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 2009

  • 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.

    The "Grist for the Mill" Strategy 2008

  • 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" Various

  • 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 Laura Lee Hope

  • 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.

    Craftsmanship in Teaching William Chandler Bagley 1910

  • 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.

    Popular Adventure Tales Mayne Reid 1850

  • 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.

    The Young Voyageurs Boy Hunters in the North Mayne Reid 1850

Comments

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  • heh, this was in wired. http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/magazine/15-09/mf_pennyarcade

    August 28, 2007

  • A swarm of bees

    November 16, 2007

  • impersonal schools bureaucracies and dehumanizing schools from being built, mills for which our children are little more than grist.

    October 2, 2010

  • Captain Jack used this word in Master and Commander when he and the doctor were arguing about his obsession with capturing Napoleon.

    June 9, 2012

  • "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

    September 9, 2012