to grind out
- phrasal verb
- /ɡraɪnd aʊt/
- Informal
- And Darwin's regret was that he had become, he said, a machine for grinding out facts and figures.
- grinding out sausage
- grind out victories
So the, the thing that was, I think people have a misconception about what hacking really is like think you're just grinding out passwords or anything.
- So the, the thing that was, I think people have a misconception about what hacking really is like think you're just grinding out passwords or anything.
Examples
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The offense has not turned the ball over and has been consistent in grinding out drives that score points.
Blog text (4) -
So his entire industry must keep on grinding out... this same kind of aviation.
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Others grind out long seasons for thousands of people in big cities.
Blog text (5) -
And if they can continue to grind out wins by doing the little things that last season's team never bothered to do, they just may be able to buy themselves time until the reinforcements arrive.
Blog text (21) -
By all accounts, the lives of the people are miserable, but the rulers just grind out an endless stream of propaganda to tell the people how happy and well-off they are.
Blog text (19) -
The factory is known for grinding out low-cost toys by the thousands each day.
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Every month, the team grinds out a new report that outlines their progress.
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Despite his best efforts, he found it hard to grind out creative ideas for the project.
Synonyms
To make large amounts quickly with little care
To make many things quickly, often without much care
Make or finish something quickly with little effort
Antonyms
How Routine
- Informal
- Informal
- Informal
Surface Forms
Morphology
grind + out
The verb 'grind' already conveys repetitive, effortful work and the particle 'out' commonly signals producing or completing something, so a learner who knows both words can infer the idea of producing items through routine effort. However, the particular nuance of low-quality, unenthusiastic mass production (the idiomatic shading similar to 'churn out') is not fully predictable from the constituents alone for a B1 learner, so the expression is only partly transparent.
Etymology
Grind out comes from the image of a mill or machine that grinds grain and pushes the flour out in a steady, boring flow. So, when someone 'grinds out' work today, it means they 'produce a lot of things in a routine, without much enthusiasm or creativity'.