English Synonyms.—Bones; chatterers; cogs; crashing cheats; dining-room furniture (or chairs); dinner-set; dominoes; front-rails; Hampstead Heath (rhyming); head rails; ivories; park-palings (or railings); snagglers; tushes (or tusks); tomb-stones.
French Synonyms.—Les soeurs blanches (thieves’ = the ‘white sisters’ or ivories); les chocottes (thieves’); les cassantes (thieves’ = grinders); les broches (popular = head-rails); les crocs (popular = tusks); le clou de giroflé (common = a decayed, black tooth); les branlantes (popular = the quakers: specifically, [[217]]old men’s teeth); le mobilier (thieves’ = furniture); les meules de moulin (popular = millstones); le jeu de dominos (thieves’ = dominoes); les osanores (thieves’); les osselets (thieves’ = bonelets); les palettes (popular and thieves’); la batterie (= the teeth, throat, and tongue).
German Synonyms.—Krächling (= grinderkin; from krachen = to crush).
Italian Synonyms.—Merlo (= battlement); sganascio; rastrelliera (= the rack).
1597. Hall, Satires, iv., 1. Her grinders like two chalk stones in a mill.
1640. Humphrey Mill, Night’s Search, Sect. 39, p. 194. Her grinders white, her mouth must show her age.
1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, bk. IV. Author’s Prologue. The devil of one musty crust of a brown George the poor boys had to scour their grinders with.
1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. Grinder, s.v. The Cove has Rum Grinders, the Rogue has excellent Teeth.
1693. Dryden, Juvenal, x., 365. One, who at sight of supper open’d wide His jaws before, and whetted grinders tried.
1740. Walpole, Correspondence. A set of gnashing teeth, the grinders very entire.