millstone

[ mil-stohn ]
See synonyms for millstone on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. either of a pair of circular stones between which grain or another substance is ground, as in a mill.

  2. anything that grinds or crushes.

  1. any heavy mental or emotional burden (often used in the phrase a millstone around one's neck).

Origin of millstone

1
before 1050; Middle English milneston,Old English mylenstān.See mill1, stone

Words Nearby millstone

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use millstone in a sentence

  • Take a millstone and grind meal: uncover thy shame, strip thy shoulder, make bare thy legs, pass over the rivers.

  • In other respects—never having been appealed to by love—it was as hard as a small millstone.

  • He owed them money, which at present he could not pay; his undischarged “debts of honour” hung like a millstone round his neck.

    Julian Home | Dean Frederic W. Farrar
  • It was a thin slab, roughly circular in shape; not unlike what one might suppose a millstone to be in the rough.

  • I soon found he was a regular millstone round my neck—particularly when we were on the “walk-about.”

British Dictionary definitions for millstone

millstone

/ (ˈmɪlˌstəʊn) /


noun
  1. one of a pair of heavy flat disc-shaped stones that are rotated one against the other to grind grain

  2. a heavy burden, such as a responsibility or obligation: his debts were a millstone round his neck

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012