vbl. sb. [f. FLOUR v. + -ING1.]
1. U. S. The action or process of grinding grain into flour: also attrib. in flouring-mill, ‘a mill for making flour, usually on a large scale; distinguished from grist-mill’ (Cent. Dict.).
1855. H. Clarke, Dict., Flouring, flour business.
1859. Bartlett, Dict. Amer., 156. Flouring-Mill, a grist-mill.
1888. J. W. Powell, Competition as a Factor in Human Evolution, in Amer. Anthropologist, I. No. 4. Oct., 307. It is the survival of the fittest by human selection when man transfers the struggle for existence from himself to the work of his hands, and the way from the mealing-stone to the flouring-mill is long, but every step in that way has been made in the endeavor of man to secure greater happiness.
2. (See quot. 1869.)
1869. R. B. Smyth, Gold Fields of Victoria, 611. ‘Flouring’ is the forming of the mercury into small particles by the action of the reducing-machine, and the subsequent coating of each particle by some sulphide, whereby the power of the particles to re-unite and to amalgamate with gold is lost.
1882. A. G. Lock, Gold, 565. The greater part of the flouring or sickening of the mercury used is due to the action of sulphate of iron.
