ball mill

American  

noun

1. a grinding mill in which the material to be ground is tumbled in a drum with heavy balls of iron, steel, or stone.

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ball mill British  

noun

1. engineering a horizontal cylinder or cone in which a substance, such as a mineral, is ground by rotation with steel or ceramic balls

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Etymology

Origin of ball mill

First recorded in 1900–05

Example Sentences

Inside a sealed steel container called a ball mill, small pieces of sodium metal are ground together with Teflon.

From Science Daily • Nov. 27, 2025

The team used a ball mill, a tool normally used to grind or blend materials in mineral processing, to grind down crystallized ice.

From Scientific American • Feb. 7, 2023

Picture taken through a ball mill machine June 28, 2019.

From Reuters • Jul. 1, 2022

An employee measures a newly manufactured ball mill machine at a factory in Nantong, Jiangsu province, China June 28, 2019.

From Reuters • Dec. 1, 2021

His little ball mill rolled over and over; mixing the blue mass.

From "Cannery Row" by John Steinbeck