Meaning of against the grain | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Preventing a smooth, level surface from being formed by raising the nap of the wood or causing larger splinters to form ahead of the cutting tool below the cutting surface.
2. Contrary to what is expected; especially, of behavior different from what society expects.
   idiomatic
3. Unwillingly, reluctantly; contrary to one's nature.
   idiomatic
4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see against, the, grain.

Equivalents

Examples

“By going against the grain and going to work nude, you've made yourself a laughing stock.”

“Get the thinkers out into the open like Vidal and Buckley, a really radical idea, against the grain.”

“For Nabiullina, the developments unpick almost a decade of work going against the grain of Putin’s increasing global isolation by opening up the economy.”

“It went much against the grain with him.”

“Say, you chose him / More after our commandment than as guided / By your own true affections, and that your minds, / Preoccupied with what you rather must do / Than what you should, made you against the grain / To voice him consul: lay the fault on us.”

“In all ordinary processes of grinding, the friction of the rapidly revolving millstones against the grain, or even of the stones against each other, develops a large amount of heat, so that the crushed wheat comes from the stones quite hot”

“There simply was not enough grain in each elevator to satisfy the known claims against the grain.”

CEFR level