grind to a halt
grind to a halt verb: to come to a standstill, or cease to be productive or make progress, due to an obstacle.
Verb
grind to a halt (third-person singular simple present grinds to a halt, present participle grinding to a halt, simple past and past participle ground to a halt)
- To come to a standstill, or cease to be productive or make progress, due to an obstacle.
- Work on the new high-rise ground to a halt as contractors tried to deal with all the red tape.
- After the visionary's death, work on his ideas ground to a halt.
Forms of grind to a halt
| third-person singular present | grinds to a halt |
|---|---|
| present participle | grinding to a halt |
| past participle | ground to a halt |
| past | ground to a halt |
Origin of grind to a halt
From windmills. To stop a windmill from turning too quickly, such as during a strong gust of wind, excess corn would be poured between the grinding stone (top stone) and the nether stone (bottom stone). The extra pressure would cause the stones to slow down or literally "grind to a halt", and thereby stop the windmill from turning.
Questions about grind to a halt
- What does grind to a halt mean?
- Grind to a halt means to come to a standstill, or cease to be productive or make progress, due to an obstacle.
- What part of speech is grind to a halt?
- Grind to a halt is a verb.
- What is the past tense of grind to a halt?
- The past tense of grind to a halt is ground to a halt.
Words near grind to a halt in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: grind to a halt (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-grind to a halt.ogg.
Cite this entry: “grind to a halt.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/grind_to_a_halt. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.