millstone around one's neck

Discover More

Idioms and Phrases

A heavy burden, as in Julie finds Grandma, who is crabby, a millstone around her neck . The literal hanging of a millstone about the neck is mentioned as a punishment in the New Testament (Matthew 18:6), causing the miscreant to be drowned. Its present figurative use was first recorded in a history of the Quakers (c. 1720).

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Browse