Word.ws English Dictionary

universal grinder

Syllables: uni·vers·al grind·er/ˌjuːnɪˌvɜːsl̩ ˈɡɹaɪndə/US/ˌjunəˌvɜɹs(ə)l ˈɡɹaɪndəɹ/

universal grinder noun: a notional mechanism whereby countable nouns are made uncountable.

Noun

universal grinder (plural universal grinders)

  1. A notional mechanism whereby countable nouns are made uncountable.
    • Consider a machine, the “universal grinder”. This machine is rather like a meat grinder in that one introduces something into one end, the grinder chops and grinds it up into a homogeneous mass and spews it onto the floor from its other end. The difference between the universal grinder and a meat...1975 October, F[rancis] Jeffry Pelletier, “Non-singular Reference: Some Preliminaries”, in Philosophia, volume 5, number 4, New York, N.Y.: Springer [for Bar-Ilan University], →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC...
    • I do not think it is too farfetched to imagine a universal grinder (as does Pelletier) that can grind up anything and everything such that whatever spills out is an amount of what goes in. […] The universal grinder does help us realize how our language can be used (and is used in describing these...1975 September–October, Robert X[avier] Ware, “Some Bits and Pieces”, in F[rancis] J[effry] Pelletier, editor, Synthese: An International Journal for Epistemology, Methodology and Philosophy of...

universal grinder meaning in Tamil

universal grinder in Tamil

பொது சாணை எந்திரம், பொதுச் சாணை எந்திரம், பொதுத் தீட்டி, பொதுத்தீட்டி

Forms of universal grinder

pluraluniversal grinders

Origin of universal grinder

From universal + grinder, from the idea that an object that is countable can generally be turned uncountable if put into an imaginary grinder and reduced to a mass of small pieces. The term was first used in print in a 1975 journal article by the American linguist and philosopher Francis Jeffry Pelletier (born 1944), after a suggestion of the American philosopher David Kellogg Lewis (1941–2001): see the quotation.

Words that rhyme with universal grinder

Questions about universal grinder

What does universal grinder mean?
Universal grinder means a notional mechanism whereby countable nouns are made uncountable.
What is universal grinder in Tamil?
Universal grinder in Tamil is பொது சாணை எந்திரம், பொதுச் சாணை எந்திரம், பொதுத் தீட்டி. See Universal grinder meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is universal grinder?
Universal grinder is a noun.
How do you pronounce universal grinder?
Universal grinder is pronounced /ˌjuːnɪˌvɜːsl̩ ˈɡɹaɪndə/ (UK).
What is the plural of universal grinder?
The plural of universal grinder is universal grinders.

Words near universal grinder in the dictionary

  1. universal donor
  2. universal donors
  3. Universal Friends
  4. universal grammar
  5. universal grammars
  6. universal grinder
  7. universal grinders
  8. universal instrument
  9. universal instruments
  10. universal joint
  11. universal joints

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: universal grinder (page history and authors); universal grinder (Tamil Wiktionary) (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-universal grinder.wav.

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