A bit more "bawdy court" stuff: "to grind", 1627

Sat Nov 21 17:10:24 UTC 2009

Also from Martin Ingram's _Church Courts, Sex and Marriage in
England, 1570--1640_ (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1987), here page 250:

"When Thomas Oven saw John Bathe ... having sex with Arthur
Hodgkins's wife under a hedge one night in 1627, he bade them as he
passed 'grind on' ..."

[Citation to Wiltshire Record Office, Trowbridge.]

OED 1989 has [1598] for "grinding" (noun), then 1647.

Joel

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