mill

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
mill1

▶noun

• 1 a building equipped with machinery for grinding grain into flour.

  ■ a piece of machinery for grinding grain.

• 2 a domestic device for grinding a solid substance to powder: a pepper mill.

• 3 a building fitted with machinery for a manufacturing process: a steel mill.

  ■ a piece of manufacturing machinery.

▶verb

• 1 grind in a mill.

• 2 cut or shape (metal) with a rotating tool.

  ■ produce regular ribbed markings on the edge of (a coin).

• 3 (mill about/around) (of people or animals) move around in a confused mass.

• 4 thicken (wool) by fulling it.

– phrases
go (or put someone) through the mill undergo (or cause someone to undergo) an unpleasant experience.

– derivatives
millable adjective,
milled adjective.

– origin OE mylen, based on late L. molinum, from L. mola ‘grindstone, mill’, from molere ‘to grind’.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
mill2

▶noun N. Amer. a monetary unit used only in calculations, worth one thousandth of a dollar.

– origin C18: from L. millesimum ‘thousandth part’; cf. cent.