grind (redirected from ground down)

grind to a halt/standstill

if an organization, system, or process grinds to a halt, it stops working, usually because of a problem. If the computer network crashed, the whole office would grind to a halt.

See also: halt

have an axe to grind

to have a strong opinion about something, which you are often trying to persuade other people is correct. As a novelist, he has no political axe to grind.

See also: axe

---

grind to a halt

to slowly come to a stop. Traffic on the interstate almost ground to a halt today because it was so foggy. The strike has caused production of new cars to grind to a halt.

See also: halt

have an ax to grind

1. to have a selfish reason for saying or doing something. The best reporting is done by people who don't have an ax to grind. After you get the same complaints from a number of people, you begin to think it may not be just people who have personal axes to grind.

2. to have a strong opinion about something that influences your actions. I don't have an ax to grind about the fact that Christmas has become commercialized.