grind down
verb
ground down; grinding down; grinds down
1
: to make (something hard) smaller and smoother by gradual rubbing
2
: to weaken or destroy gradually
Poverty ground her spirit down.
Examples of grind down in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Moscow knows this, but keeps going back to it in the hope that eventually Trump is ground down into seeing this concession as a necessary part of any solution.
—
Nick Paton Walsh, CNN Money, 21 Nov. 2025
And so the Jays did, piling up one quality at-bat after another, grinding down Snell, pounding the Dodgers’ suspect bullpen.
—Ken Rosenthal, New York Times, 25 Oct. 2025
Once-influential leftist factions—the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine—have been ground down by decades of arrests, exile, funding collapse, and irrelevance.
—Mohammed R. Mhawish, New Yorker, 14 Oct. 2025
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Nick Paton Walsh, CNN Money, 21 Nov. 2025
And so the Jays did, piling up one quality at-bat after another, grinding down Snell, pounding the Dodgers’ suspect bullpen.
—Ken Rosenthal, New York Times, 25 Oct. 2025
Once-influential leftist factions—the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine—have been ground down by decades of arrests, exile, funding collapse, and irrelevance.
—Mohammed R. Mhawish, New Yorker, 14 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for grind down
Cite this Entry
“Grind down.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grind%20down. Accessed 28 Jan. 2026.
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