"grinding", an academic examination

[George Thompson]

     An Examination for an *Editorial Degree of M. D.*, supposed to be
communicated by one of the Professors, or a *Fellow Graduate*, present at
the Grinding.

     National Advocate, for the Country, September 24, 1822, p. 2, col. 5

This is the heading to a long essay satirizing a rival newspaper editor who
must have expressed an opinion on (perhaps) a public health question that
differed from that held by the editor of the Advocate.

HDAS doesn't have "grinding" as such, has "grind" as a noun meaning hard
study, from 1850, and as a verb, meaning to study hard, from 1815 and i835,
citing the OED.
1815: Perhaps when Tom leaves Oxford, . . . we may contrive some gainful
grinding scheme between us.
1835:
--
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.

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