Word.ws English Dictionary

organ grinder

Syllables: or·gan grind·erUK/ˈɔːɡən ˌɡɹaɪndə//ˈɔɹɡən ˌɡɹaɪndəɹ/

organ grinder noun: the player of a barrel organ.

organ grinder: the player of a barrel organ
Image: Overpeck (photographer, Hamilton, Ohio, USA), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

organ grinder (plural organ grinders)

  1. The player of a barrel organ.
    • There is one beautiful sight in the East End, and only one, and it is the children dancing in the street when the organ-grinder goes his round.1903 October, Jack London, chapter XXIII, in The People of the Abyss, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC
    • The organ-grinders were at work; but they were always precocious harbingers. It was near enough spring for them to go penny-hunting when the skating ball dropped at the park.1903–1906, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “The Easter of the Soul”, in The Voice of the City, complete edition, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran & Company, published 1908, →OCLC...
    Synonyms:
    barrel organist
  2. (figuratively) The person who is in charge, rather than a lackey or representative; the person truly responsible for another's actions.
    • I want to speak to the organ grinder, not the monkey.

Synonyms of organ grinder

Forms of organ grinder

pluralorgan grinders
alternative formorgan-grinder

Origin of organ grinder

From the repetitive grinding involved in playing a barrel organ. In figurative senses, from the common 19th-century practice of training monkeys to dance to an organ grinder's music in order to perform on the street and solicit donations and spare change.

Words formed from organ grinder

Questions about organ grinder

What does organ grinder mean?
Organ grinder means the player of a barrel organ.
What part of speech is organ grinder?
Organ grinder is a noun.
How do you pronounce organ grinder?
Organ grinder is pronounced /ˈɔːɡən ˌɡɹaɪndə/ (UK).
What is the plural of organ grinder?
The plural of organ grinder is organ grinders.

Words near organ grinder in the dictionary

  1. organ consoles
  2. organ donation
  3. organ donations
  4. organ donor
  5. organ donors
  6. organ grinder
  7. organ grinders
  8. organ gun
  9. organ guns
  10. organ harmonium
  11. organ harmoniums

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: organ grinder (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-us-organ grinder.oga.

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