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Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

born in a mill en · X

Etymology

The loud machinery in a mill may necessitate raising one's voice to be heard.

Meanings

  1. Applied to a person who speaks more loudly than necessary.
    • Admonished that she should “keep the woman's virtue and be more silent,” she countered “that she was 'born in a mill, begot in a kill, she must have her will,' she could speak no softlier.” 2015, Kirilka Stavreva, Words Like Daggers, page 77:
    • Hence among the vulgar, when you speak to them with too loud a voice, they tell you "that they were not born in a mill." 1981, Benjamin Rush, Eric T. Carlson, Jeffrey L. Wollock, Benjamin Rush's Lectures on the Mind, page 345:
    • Were you born in a mill, curtole? you prate so hye. 1578, George Whetstone, Promos and Cassandra, quoted in 1965, Burton Egbert Stevenson, The Macmillan Book of Proverbs, Maxims, and Famous Phrases (page 497)