grist

/ɡɹɪst/

grist noun: grain that is to be ground in a mill. Also the ellipsis of grist for the mill.

Noun

grist (countable and uncountable, plural grists)

Grain that is to be ground in a mill.
- That it will, however, cause the subscribers to wish, in their minds, for many oaths to fly about, which is a heinous crime, and to lay stratagems to try the patience of men of all sorts; to put them upon the swearing strain, in order to bring grist to their own mill, which is a crime still more...1720, Thomas Hope [pseudonym; Jonathan Swift], “An Essay on English Bubbles”, in The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, volume 8
- Ancient nomads, wishing to ward off the evening chill and enjoy a meal around a campfire, had to collect wood and then spend time and effort coaxing the heat of friction out from between sticks to kindle a flame. With more settled people, animals were harnessed to capstans or caged in treadmills to...2013 July–August, Henry Petroski, “Geothermal Energy”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4
(collective, dated) A group of bees.
- Swarming like a grist of bees...2024, Kylie Orr, The Eleventh Floor, HQ Fiction
- A grist of bees is somehow leaking through the insufficient squares of the bug screen2023, Kenan Orhan, ““Three Parts in Which Emre Kills His Daughters””, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)
(colloquial, obsolete) Supply; provision.
- Matter, as wise logicians say, / Cannot without a form subsist; / And form, say I, as well as they, / Must fail if matter brings no grist.1719, Jonathan Swift, “The Progress of Beauty”, in The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., volume 1
A given size of rope, common grist being a rope three inches in circumference, with twenty yarns in each of the three strands.

Verb

grist (third-person singular simple present grists, present participle gristing, simple past and past participle gristed)

(transitive) To grind in a mill.
- […] and another mill is erecting on the same stream near Sparrow Lake, to which a run of stones for gristing will be added.1861, Sessional Papers of the Parliament of the Province of Canada
- […] it cleaned out two hundred and ten bushels called screenings; the balance was sold, gristed and used for seed.1892, Annual report of the Department of Indian Affairs, page 70

Also used as

grist is also the ellipsis of grist for the mill.

Forms of grist

Noun
plural	grists
Verb
third-person singular present	grists
present participle	gristing
past participle	gristed
past	gristed

Origin of grist

From Middle English grist, gryst, from Old English grist, gyrst (“the action of grinding, corn for grinding, gnashing”), of obscure origin: possibly from a pre-Germanic substrate language, or from a derivative of Proto-Germanic *gredaną (“to crunch”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *gʰer- (“to rub, grind”). Cognate with Old Saxon gristgrimmo (“gnashing of the teeth”), German Griesgram (“a grumbler, a grouch, peevishness, misery”), Old English gristel (“gristle”).

Words formed from grist

Phrases with grist

grist mills

Words that rhyme with grist

43 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about grist

What does grist mean?: Grist means grain that is to be ground in a mill.
What part of speech is grist?: Grist can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce grist?: Grist is pronounced /ɡɹɪst/.
What is the plural of grist?: The plural of grist is grists.

Words near grist in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: grist (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-grist.wav.

Cite this entry: “grist.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/grist. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.