Mill

Part of speech: noun, verb

Pronunciation: /mɪl/

Definitions

1. A building where grain is ground into flour ; a facility where raw materials are processed into products ; a device that crushes or grinds materials into smaller pieces
2. An establishment used to grind cereal grains ; a place with machinery to produce goods on a large scale ; a mechanical apparatus that reduces substances to powder or small fragments
3. A structure housing equipment to pulverize grain ; a workshop or plant that manufactures items ; a device designed to break down solid materials by pressure or friction

Etymology: The grinding machine is older than the English word for it. Old English "mylen" came from a Proto-West Germanic form, which in turn was borrowed from Late Latin "molīna", a word for a mill that grew out of the Latin verb "molō", meaning "to grind". Old English speakers had the thing and the name, and the name's ancestry runs back to the same root that gave English "molar", the tooth that grinds food. The word "mill" then took on a second, unrelated life. Its other sense, a thousandth of a dollar or pound, descends from Latin "mīllēsimum", "thousandth", and reached English as a clipping of "millimetre" and "million". This is a separate word that happens to share a spelling, and it has nothing to do with grinding. The word also shows a doublet: "moline", "moulin" and "blin" are all relatives of the same Latin source, passed into other languages along different routes.

Synonyms: factory, plant, workshop, gristmill, refinery

Antonyms: halt, stop, cease, idle, discontinue