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handmill

n. A mill for grinding grain, pepper, coffee, etc. worked by hand as distinguished from those driven by steam, water, or other power; a quern.

Usage examples of "handmill".

Each camp had its own handmill, and when there was grain to grind, they had bread.

At these handmills twelve women in all plied their task, making meal of barley and of wheat the marrow of men.

A few eyed the sacks already loaded on the carts, but the beans needed to be soaked and the grain run through the large handmills that had been left back in the camp, and that was after the cooks picked out as many more weevils as they thought men could not stomach eating.

Off to one side a portable earthenware oven was established under the presidency of a woman whose duty it was to keep the company in bread, or, more precisely, in hot cakes of flour from the handmills grinding with constant sound in a neighboring tent.

After Tsong, his family, and Li disappeared, they chatted for a while, then piecemeal went back to their cookfires, handmills, looms, tools, animals, all that kept them alive as it had kept their ancestors alive from time out of mind.