go through the mill

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Verb

go through the mill (third-person singular simple present goes through the mill, present participle going through the mill, simple past went through the mill, past participle gone through the mill)

1. (idiomatic) To experience the suffering or discipline necessary to bring one to a certain degree of knowledge or skill, or to a certain mental state.
2. (UK, slang, obsolete) To go through bankruptcy.
   • 1877, The Accountant, volume 3, page 3:

     All know the high estimation debtors held the Act 1861, by the number who went "through the mill" at the close of 1869.

Translations

to gain experience or maturity through suffering or discipline

• Finnish: kärsiä (fi)
• French: en voir de toutes les couleurs (fr), être mis à rude épreuve
• Polish: przechodzić twardą szkołe impf, przejść twardą szkołe pf
• Russian: пройти́ ого́нь и во́ду (projtí ogónʹ i vódu) (lit: go through fire and water), пройти́ ого́нь, во́ду и ме́дные тру́бы (projtí ogónʹ, vódu i médnyje trúby) (lit: go through fire, water and copper pipes)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: про̑ћи си̏то и решѐто

  Roman: prȏći sȉto i rešèto

References

• (bankruptcy): John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary (under "Mill")