1812. EDGEWORTH, Patronage, ch. iii. Put him into the hands of a clever GRINDER or crammer, and they would soon cram the necessary portion of Latin and Greek into him.
1841. Punch, vol. I., p. 201. Then contriving to accumulate five guineas to pay a GRINDER, he routs out his old note books from the bottom of his box and commences to read.
1849. THACKERAY, Pendennis, ch. v. She sent me down here with a GRINDER. She wants me to cultivate my neglected genius.
1861. ALBERT SMITH, The London Medical Student, p. 83, ‘The Student’s Alphabet.’ G was a GRINDER, who sharpen’d the fools.
2. Usually in pl. (common).—The teeth.
ENGLISH SYNONYMS.—Bones; chatterers; cogs; crashing cheats; dining-room furniture (or chairs); dinner-set; dominoes; front-rails; Hampstead Heath (rhyming slang); head rails; ivories; park-palings (or railings); snagglers; tushes (or tusks); tomb-stones.
FRENCH SYNONYMS.—Les soeurs blanches (thieves’ = the ‘white sisters’ or ivories); les chocottes (thieves’); les cassantes (thieves’ = grinders); les broches (popular = head-rails); les crocs (popular = tusks); le clou de giroflé (common = a decayed, black tooth); les branlantes (popular = the quakers: specifically, old men’s teeth); le mobilier (thieves’ = furniture); les meules de moulin (popular = millstones); le jeu de dominos (thieves’ = dominoes); les osanores (thieves’); les osselets (thieves’ = bonelets); les palettes (popular and thieves’); la batterie (= the teeth, throat, and tongue).
GERMAN SYNONYMS.—Krächling (= grinderkin; from krachen = to crush).
ITALIAN SYNONYMS.—Merlo (= battlement); sganascio; rastrelliera (= the rack).
1597. JOSEPH HALL, Satires, iv., 1. Her GRINDERS like two chalk stones in a mill.
1640. HUMPHREY MILL, The Nights Search, Sect. 39, p. 194. Her GRINDERS white, her mouth must show her age.
1653. URQUHART, Rabelais, bk. IV. Author’s Prologue. The devil of one musty crust of a brown George the poor boys had to scour their GRINDERS with.
c. 1696. B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v. GRINDER. The Cove has Rum GRINDERS, the Rogue has excellent Teeth.
1693. DRYDEN, Juvenal, x., 365.
| One, who at sight of supper open’d wide | |
| His jaws before, and whetted GRINDERS tried. |
1740. WALPOLE, Correspondence. A set of gnashing teeth, the GRINDERS very entire.
1751. SMOLLETT, Peregrine Pickle, ch. xiv. Like a dried walnut between the GRINDERS of a Templar in the pit.
1817. SCOTT, Ivanhoe, ii., ii. None who beheld thy GRINDERS contending with these peas.
1819. T. MOORE, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, p. 23. With GRINDERS dislodg’d, and with peepers both poach’d.
1834. W. H. AINSWORTH, Rookwood, bk. iv., ch. i. A GRINDER having been dislodged, his pipe took possession of the aperture.
1836. M. SCOTT, The Cruise of the Midge, p. 83. Every now and then he would clap his head sideways on the ground, so as to get the back GRINDERS to bear on his prey.
1848. THACKERAY, The Book of Snobs, ch. xiii. Sir Robert Peel, though he wished it ever so much, has no power over Mr. Benjamin Disraeli’s GRINDERS, or any means of violently handling that gentleman’s jaw.
1871. Chambers’s Journal, 9 Dec., p. 772. My GRINDERS is good enough for all the wittels I gets.
1888. Sporting Life, 28 Nov. Countered heavily on the GRINDERS.
TO TAKE A GRINDER, verb. phr. (common).—To apply the left thumb to the nose, and revolve the right hand round it, as if to work a hand-organ or coffee-mill; TO TAKE A SIGHT (q.v.); TO WORK THE COFFEE-MILL (q.v.). [A street boy’s retort on an attempt to impose on his good faith or credulity.]
1836. DICKENS, Pickwick Papers, ch. xxxi. Here Mr. Jackson smiled once more upon the company; and, applying his left thumb to the tip of his nose, worked a visionary coffee-mill with his right hand, thereby performing a very graceful piece of pantomime (then much in vogue, but now, unhappily, almost obsolete) which was familiarly denominated TAKING A GRINDER.
1870. Athenæum, 8 July. ‘Review of Sherwood’s The Comic History of the United States.’ He finds himself confronted by a plumed and lightly-clad Indian, who salutes him with what street-boys term ‘a GRINDER.’
