grind
verb (used with object)
to wear, smooth, or sharpen by abrasion or friction; whet.
had been grinding
-
past perfect progressiveof grind.past perfect progressive
Used to describe an action that was ongoing continuously in the past up until another past event interrupted it.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Mahmoud Shalabi, a local medical aid worker in Beit Lahia, said people had been grinding grains used for animal feed into flour, but that even that was now running out.
From BBC ● Feb. 10, 2024
Even those crazy-grueling three weeks of IB essay exams, which Marin had been grinding toward for four years - and yes, anticipating - were canceled.
From Washington Times ● May 17, 2020
Meanwhile Congress had been grinding the unimpressive but all important grist of appropriations which will keep the Government functioning to June 30, 1927.
From Time Magazine Archive
The glacier had been over these mountainsides, in the hundreds of thousands of years it had been grinding back and forth across the North.
From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
It begins to look as if in this "strange work" God had been grinding up material for a nobler manifestation of the unity of his people.
From A History of American Christianity by Bacon, Leonard Woolsey
