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grindstone
in a sentence
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show 10 more with this conextual meaning
  • She sharpened the knife on a grindstone.
  • The grindstone, pestle and mortar were too heavy to take; in any case my daughter-in-law would be providing these.   (source)
    grindstone = a large stone used to grind, sharpen or polish
  • There's a gaudy big grindstone down at the mill...   (source)
    grindstone = a large stone shaped like a disk that spins and is used to grind grain
  • After grinding a number of dull blades,—of whom it was remarkable that their fathers, when influential, were always going to help him to preferment, but always forgot to do it when the blades had left the Grindstone,—he had wearied of that poor work and had come to London.   (source)
    grindstone = a revolving stone shaped like a disk that is used to sharpen, grind, or polish
  • My jack-knife here needs the grindstone.   (source)
    grindstone = a stone shaped like a disk that spins and is used to sharpen, grind, or polish
  • ...come, turn this grindstone.   (source)
    grindstone = a large stone shaped like a disk that spins and is used to grind, sharpen or polish
  • Life is a grindstone, and whether it grinds a man down or polishes him up depends on the stuff he's made of.   (source)
  • But how in the nation'd they ever GIT that grindstone IN there, ANYWAY?   (source)
    grindstone = a stone shaped like a disk that spins and is used to grind, sharpen or polish
  • We smouched the grindstone, and set out to roll her home, but it was a most nation tough job.   (source)
  • Our hole was pretty big, but it warn't big enough to get the grindstone through;   (source)
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show 9 more with this conextual meaning
  • I was a-sayin' to Sister Dunlap, jist this minute, how DID they git that grindstone in there, s'I.   (source)
  • And he said that between the rats and the snakes and the grindstone there warn't no room in bed for him...   (source)
  • It warn't no slouch of an idea; and it warn't no slouch of a grindstone nuther; but we allowed we'd tackle it.   (source)
  • Look at that-air grindstone, s'I; want to tell ME't any cretur 't's in his right mind 's a goin' to scrabble all them crazy things onto a grindstone, s'I?   (source)
  • Then Tom marked out them things on it with the nail, and set Jim to work on them, with the nail for a chisel and an iron bolt from the rubbage in the lean-to for a hammer, and told him to work till the rest of his candle quit on him, and then he could go to bed, and hide the grindstone under his straw tick and sleep on it.   (source)
  • We see it warn't no use; we got to go and fetch Jim. So he raised up his bed and slid the chain off of the bed-leg, and wrapt it round and round his neck, and we crawled out through our hole and down there, and Jim and me laid into that grindstone and walked her along like nothing; and Tom superintended.   (source)
  • And we had to steal candles, and the sheet, and the shirt, and your dress, and spoons, and tin plates, and case-knives, and the warming-pan, and the grindstone, and flour, and just no end of things, and you can't think what work it was to make the saws, and pens, and inscriptions, and one thing or another, and you can't think HALF the fun it was.   (source)
  • The shirt was sent in early, in a pie, and every time a rat bit Jim he would get up and write a little in his journal whilst the ink was fresh; the pens was made, the inscriptions and so on was all carved on the grindstone; the bed-leg was sawed in two, and we had et up the sawdust, and it give us a most amazing stomach-ache.   (source)
  • So once more the sail was shortened, and everything passed nearly as on the previous night; only, the sound of hammers, and the hum of the grindstone was heard till nearly daylight, as the men toiled by lanterns in the complete and careful rigging of the spare boats and sharpening their fresh weapons for the morrow.   (source)
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show 5 more with this conextual meaning
  • Keep your nose to the grindstone.
  • 'So you've got your exams coming up, haven't you? They'll be keeping your noses so hard to that grindstone they'll be rubbed raw,' said Fred with satisfaction.   (source)
    grindstone = hard work (figuratively referring to working hard with a large stone used to grind, sharpen, or polish)
  • "Keeps your nose to the grindstone," Tyler said, grinning.†   (source)
  • No, now that he had arrived, he must keep his nose to the grindstone.†   (source)
  • Kept his nose to the grindstone and sold one bottle of snake oil too many.†   (source)
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show 10 more examples with any meaning
  • Time to put our noses to the grindstone.†   (source)
  • They claimed a clarity of vision that could only have come from being honed on the grindstone of reality.†   (source)
  • I would have happily chopped off the heads of a barrel full of eels to escape another afternoon trapped with men whose voices droned on and on and on like rumbling, dusty grindstones.†   (source)
  • There's going to be more work than I can handle with my new grindstones.†   (source)
  • Dianne is like a waterfall of spark pouring off a sharp iron edge that God is holding to the grindstone.†   (source)
  • Timothy said that the sand in the sea water acted like a grindstone on the sharp edges of the coral.†   (source)
  • His day of recreation and relaxation, his chance to escape from the grindstone, the break he earned after five days at the bank, the kind of day he needed.†   (source)
  • …drilling holes in the pavement, knocking down trees to make room for telephone poles, knocking down telephone poles to make room for buildings, knocking down buildings to plant trees; a blockade of itinerant vendors hawking the wonders of this grindstone, that toasted peanut, this little doll that dances by itself without a single wire or thread, look for yourself, run your hand over it; a whirlwind of garbage dumps, food stands, factories, cars hurtling into carriages and sweat-drawn…†   (source)
  • The barn had stalls on the main floor for the work horses, tie-ups on the main floor for the cows, a sheepfold down below for the sheep, a pigpen down below for Wilbur, and it was full of all sorts of things that you find in barns: ladders, grindstones, pitch forks, monkey wrenches, scythes, lawn mowers, snow shovels, ax handles, milk pails, water buckets, empty grain sacks, and rusty rat traps.†   (source)
  • Horns cracked out in the darkening stillness; grindstones screeched.†   (source)
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  • But sometimes (like right now), as I sit in the cool, green-draped parlor, the grindstone begins to turn, and time with all its changes is ground away--and I remember Doodle.†   (source)
  • But since I know the passions of the mapifiers I can report that I moved north in Maine roughly parallel to U.S. Highway 1 through Houlton, Mars Hill, Presque Isle, Caribou, Van Buren, turned westward, still on U.S. 1, past Madawaska, Upper Frenchville, and Fort Kent, then went due south on State Highway 11 past Eagle Lake, Winterville, Portage, Squa Pan, Masardis, Knowles Corner, Patten, Sherman, Grindstone, and so to Millinocket.†   (source)
  • I was damn well going to see a little of Europe before I applied nose to grindstone; another such chance might never come.†   (source)
  • Someone in the arbor was using a grindstone, hidden by the propped branches of willow still shaggy with dry leaves.†   (source)
  • There's going to be more work than I can handle with my new grindstones.†   (source)
  • Frank Sinatra is The Singing Marshmallow, Betty Hutton is The Human Grindstone.†   (source)
  • Though the wheels were moving, Roran could tell they were disengaged from the complex arrangement of gears hidden inside the buildings, for he did not hear the rumble of the grindstones turning in their places.†   (source)
  • A grindstone stands where the bleeding tree stood, just outside the kitchen door, and now if an oriole sings in the elm, its song seems to die up in the leaves, a silvery dust.†   (source)
  • The wheels were connected by thick axles to three identical buildings that stood stacked one above the other along the terraced bank and which contained the massive grindstones needed to produce the flour for Aroughs's population.†   (source)
  • I hear the rush of the great grindstone within an inch of my head.†   (source)
  • When we rolled forward the wheels creaked and bit out sparks like grindstones, and the couplings played free and hooked tight in a mechanical game into which your observation and brain were forced.†   (source)
  • I would see (after Thoby's death) two great grindstones (as I walked round Gordon Square) and myself between them.†   (source)
  • Then you must tell 'em dat love ain't somethin' lak uh grindstone dat's de same thing everywhere and do de same thing tuh everything it touch.†   (source)
  • There were pikes to be ground to a fine edge, so that the grindstones in the town were roaring day and night—there were thousands of arrows to be dressed, so that there were lights in the fletchers' houses at all hours—and the unfortunate geese on the commons were continually being chased by excited yeomen who wanted feathers.†   (source)
  • But if you hold a blunt blade to a grindstone long enough, something spurts—a jagged edge of fire; so held to lack of reason, aimlessness, the usual, all massed together, out spurted in one flame hatred, contempt.†   (source)
  • Not in relation to human beings; in relation to the force which had respected me sufficiently to make me feel myself ground between grindstones. j' It seems to me therefore that our relation (Thoby's and mine) wasmore serious than it would have been without those deaths.†   (source)
  • It was rusty and dull, but I turned the grindstone while Louis gave it an edge.†   (source)
  • Flush with the wood was the apple orchard, where blossom was falling on the grindstone.†   (source)
  • I told you she took everything, herself included, to a grindstone, and sharpened it.†   (source)
  • The very grindstone 'ull go on turning a bit after you loose it."†   (source)
  • Near by him men sat bending over whirling grindstones, putting the finishing touches to the steel knives of the reaper; picking them out of a basket with the right hand, pressing first one side and then the other against the stone and finally dropping them with the left hand into another basket.†   (source)
  • We are kept keen on the grindstone of pain and necessity, and, it seemed to me, that here was that hateful grindstone broken at last!†   (source)
  • Now you know;' here his countenance expressed marvellous acuteness; 'I can see as far into a grindstone as another man; farther than a good many, perhaps, because I had my nose well kept to it when I was young.†   (source)
  • The workshop was arrived at by a step-ladder from the outer yard below, where it served as a shelter for the large grindstone where tools were sharpened.†   (source)
  • I'll turn the winch of the grindstone.†   (source)
  • For the present, we had barely time to get something to eat and hurry into the boat, where were collected our new acquisitions, namely, a copper boiler, iron plates, tobacco-graters, two grindstones, a small barrel of powder, and another of flints, two wheelbarrows besides Jack's, which he kept under his own especial care.†   (source)
  • II The Grindstone.†   (source)
  • Twice more in the darkness the bell at the great gate sounded, and the irruption was repeated, and the grindstone whirled and spluttered.†   (source)
  • Cainy Ball turned the handle of Gabriel's grindstone, his head performing a melancholy see-saw up and down with each turn of the wheel.†   (source)
  • She brings everything to a grindstone,' said Steerforth, and sharpens it, as she has sharpened her own face and figure these years past.†   (source)
  • But, the lesser grindstone stood alone there in the calm morning air, with a red upon it that the sun had never given, and would never take away.†   (source)
  • The great grindstone, Earth, had turned when Mr. Lorry looked out again, and the sun was red on the courtyard.†   (source)
  • Not you!" and throwing off other sarcastic sparks from the whirling grindstone of his indignation, Mr. Cruncher betook himself to his boot-cleaning and his general preparation for business.†   (source)
  • The grindstone had a double handle, and, turning at it madly were two men, whose faces, as their long hair flapped back when the whirlings of the grindstone brought their faces up, were more horrible and cruel than the visages of the wildest savages in their most barbarous disguise.†   (source)
  • Against two of the pillars were fastened two great flaring flambeaux, and in the light of these, standing out in the open air, was a large grindstone: a roughly mounted thing which appeared to have hurriedly been brought there from some neighbouring smithy, or other workshop.†   (source)
  • The people in possession of the house had let them in at the gate, and they had rushed in to work at the grindstone; it had evidently been set up there for their purpose, as in a convenient and retired spot.†   (source)
  • A man, so besmeared that he might have been a sorely wounded soldier creeping back to consciousness on a field of slain, was rising from the pavement by the side of the grindstone, and looking about him with a vacant air.†   (source)
  • "The beasts ha' such a thick coat, the cold's no hindrance to them," he explained, sharpening a spearpoint with enthusiasm against a foot-driven grindstone, "and they feel safe wi' the mist so heavy all round them—canna see the men coming toward them, ye ken."†   (source)
  • Eeltraps, lobsterpots, fishingrods, hatchet, steelyard, grindstone, clodcrusher, swatheturner, carriagesack, telescope ladder, 10 tooth rake, washing clogs, haytedder, tumbling rake, billhook, paintpot, brush, hoe and so on.†   (source)
  • Away with the join-stools, remove the court-cupboard, look to the plate:—good thou, save me a piece of marchpane; and as thou loves me, let the porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell.†   (source)
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