milling

Pluralmillings (some meanings)

1. 1
   noununcountable

   Any of several processes in which material is ground, cut, or shredded by one of the many different kinds of mill.

   At the processing plant, milling reduces the crushed ore to a powder fine enough for the gold to be separated.

   The shop does milling of every kind, from grinding pigments to shredding old tires.

   Note

   The umbrella meaning, from which the trade-specific ones branch off. On its own the word leans on its setting to say what is being milled: in a flour mill it means grinding grain into meal, in a machine shop cutting with a rotary cutter. Where the setting leaves the material unclear, put it in front of the noun (flour milling, ore milling, lumber milling) and the word stays precise.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The grinding, cutting, or shredding of grain to produce meal or flour.

   The milling of soft wheat yields a fine flour suited to pastry.

   Traditional milling at the watermill left the bran in the meal.

   Similargrinding

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A machining process in which a rotating cutter is moved along a toolpath to cut away material.

   Precision milling produced the engine components to tight tolerances.

   The shop relies on computer-controlled milling for complex aluminum parts.

   Note

   The machine shop's sense: the cutter spins while it travels along its toolpath, taking material off the workpiece with its edge or across its face. It is subtractive work, so the finished part is carved out of solid stock, and the toolpath is often computer-controlled. Unlike grinding grain into flour, nothing is meant to end as powder. The aim is an exact shape held to tight tolerances.

4. 4
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of mill.

   The factory is milling steel blocks into precise components.

   They were milling lumber when the power suddenly failed.

   Note

   Behind the participle stands a verb that works both ways. Transitively it takes an object: mill grain, mill steel, mill the edge of a coin. The herd-and-crowd meaning is usually intransitive, so people are simply milling, not milling something. Only the noun takes a plural, millings. The gerund never does, which helps tell a verbal use from the crowd's circling motion and the other nouns.

5. 5
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The ring of fine notches cut around a coin's edge during minting, so any shaving of metal from the rim can be detected.

   Counterfeit detectors check the milling along each coin's rim.

   The old shilling's milling had worn nearly smooth from decades of handling.

   Similarreeding

   Note

   Of all the marks milling leaves behind, a coin's edge is the most familiar one. The notches are there for security: a rim that has been clipped or filed loses its even pattern, so the shaving shows. Collectors also call the pattern reeding. One speaks of the milling on or along a coin's edge, and of a worn coin whose milling has gone smooth.

6. 6
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The circular or random movement of a herd of animals or a crowd of people.

   The milling of the herd intensified as the storm drew closer.

   Security struggled to control the milling of the festival crowd.

   Similarchurning, swirling, circling

7. 7
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The surface or other physical result left on material by a milling process.

   The machinist inspected the milling for tool marks and chatter.

   A clean milling on the aluminum told her the cutter was still sharp.

   Similarfinish

8. 8
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The cutting of timber to produce millwork, the finely finished lumber used in building.

   The sawmill's milling produced clean baseboards and window casings.

   Fine milling of the cedar yielded molding for the restored porch.

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