What does mill mean

"Mill" is a Chinese word for a piece of equipment used primarily to grind grain and cereals, usually made of stone, with a large stone disk and a small stone disk. The stone wheel is usually more than a meter in diameter and is tied to a wooden frame with a rope, while the interior of the mill consists of two stones, the large comb stone attached to a wooden pole, which is affixed to the small mill stone, and rotated by a hand crank to grind the material taken out of the crop into a fine powder.

In ancient rural China, the mill was a very common tool, a primitive and ingenious machine, very important to facilitate the processing of flour or other materials that could be stored and used in large quantities. In rural life, the production and use of flour on a household basis relies heavily on the mill as a tool.

Additionally, the mill is often used as a metaphor for work or labor that is too hard, laborious, or tedious, such as "a lifetime is like spinning around inside a mill," etc., which no longer refers to a specific tool, but rather is a symbol of the repetitive action of grinding grain.

In short, the mill is a kind of agricultural tool used to process grain and other food, and its role was very important in the ancient countryside, while in the modern context, the meaning of the mill may be enriched by the use of metaphors.