grist to the mill

English

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

grist to the mill (uncountable)

1. (idiomatic, chiefly UK) Alternative form of grist for the mill
   • 1875, Anthony Trollope, chapter 58, in The Way We Live Now, London: Chapman and Hall, […]:

     What evil will not a rival say to stop the flow of grist to the mill of the hated one?

   • 1999, Simon Blackburn, Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy (Oxford University Press paperback, →ISBN, ch. 7 section 6: "Kant’s Revolution", pp. 258–259:

     This might all seem grist to Berkeley’s mill. Berkeley himself knew that we interpret our experience in spatio-temporal, objective terms. But he thought we had to ‘speak with the vulgar but think with the learned’: in other words, learn to regard that interpretation as a kind of façon de parler, rather than the description of a real, independent, objective world.

Usage notes

• Often found in the expression it's all grist to the mill and variations thereof.