millstone
/ˈmɪlstəʊn
/noun
1Each of two circular stones used for grinding corn.On a more secular level, stone was used for a number of purposes, the most widespread being the manufacture of quern stones and millstones in water-mills....
- Then they are ground through three pairs of water-powered millstones, becoming successively finer with each set of stones, and packed into airtight containers for distribution.
- He explained that they were the sites where millstones were cut from the outcrops of Millstone Grit.
1.1A heavy and inescapable responsibility: she threatened to become a millstone round his neck...
- I felt like a millstone round her neck, her own health problems taking a back seat to my own.
- He regarded Holmes as a millstone round his neck, preferring to research and write historical fiction.
- The house is lovely but it's a millstone round your neck if you can't make enough money to redecorate it.
Synonyms
burden, unwanted responsibility, encumbrance, dead weight, load, onus;
duty, obligation, liability, trouble, problem, misfortune, affliction;
cross to bear, albatross
archaic cumber
- teaching
- teaching fellow
- teaching hospital
- teaching machine
- teach one's grandmother to suck eggs
- teach school
- teach someone a lesson
- Teachta Dála
- tea cloth
- death knell
- deathless
- deathlessness
- death light
- deathlike
- deathliness
- deathling
- deathly
- death march
- death mask
- death match
- death metal
- death moth
- death notice
- death-obsessed
- death-or-glory