How to Use millstone in a Sentence

millstone

noun
  • The scandal has been a millstone around her neck.
  • College loans can quickly become a millstone for students.
  • The scandal has become a political millstone.
  • That millstone will hang from his neck along with all the medals.
    Brian Straus, SI.com, 13 Oct. 2017
  • The price: a fifth of whatever the millstones spat out.
    Darryl Levings, kansascity, 18 July 2017
  • It was regarded with shame, a millstone around the neck of the Mill City.
    James Lileks, Star Tribune, 23 Apr. 2021
  • That deal proved a millstone that helped push Detroit off the rebuild cliff.
    BostonGlobe.com, 5 Nov. 2021
  • Killing it, the mariner severs himself from the source of his being; the bird’s body is hung around his neck like a millstone.
    James Parker, The Atlantic, 13 May 2020
  • A hefty Indonesian millstone near the entry sets the scale.
    Valerie Easton, The Seattle Times, 12 Apr. 2017
  • The need to do six Dior collections a year was seen as a millstone around the neck of creativity.
    Vanessa Friedman, New York Times, 2 Aug. 2016
  • In 2012, the Left hung Todd Akin around Republican necks like a millstone.
    David French, National Review, 11 Dec. 2017
  • The heaviest are stone crosses and millstones, carried in from fields and hung on walls.
    Joe Grimm, Detroit Free Press, 15 July 2017
  • This is the millstone of the Electoral College, but there is a way to shed it: Choose the map that looks most winnable and is closest to 270 electoral votes and go for broke.
    Time, 17 Sep. 2019
  • The McQueen show has become a little bit of an albatross in a way, a bit of a millstone around my neck.
    Eliza Brooke, Vox, 12 Oct. 2018
  • The millstone is inflation, which has tempered sharply from its peak last year but remains above the norm.
    Reid J. Epstein, New York Times, 29 June 2023
  • Debt is a millstone that weighs down more than three-quarters of Americans.
    Stacey Abrams, Fortune, 24 Apr. 2018
  • Instead the health care and tax cuts have been a millstone around Republican necks.
    Jonathan Chait, Daily Intelligencer, 16 Mar. 2018
  • The basalt millstones at the Jebrini mill, for example, date back 200 years.
    Yotam Ottolenghi, sacbee.com, 13 June 2017
  • By the time Hosmer and Green headed to the clubhouse, Lauer was back on the dugout bench, watching the bulk of another game at the venue that is a millstone around his neck.
    San Diego Union-Tribune, 14 Sep. 2019
  • Right now, Biden is a millstone around the neck of local party officials.
    Dallas News, 4 Apr. 2022
  • She is allowed a big scene near the end, which only underscores the fact that she has been employed to that point largely as a millstone.
    Los Angeles Times, 30 Apr. 2020
  • Evanston can't allow the effort once hailed as a milestone to become a millstone.
    Dahleen Glanton, Star Tribune, 26 Mar. 2021
  • The millstones were for grain; the crosses are said to be not gravestones but border markers or reverence stones.
    Joe Grimm, Detroit Free Press, 15 July 2017
  • Yet those same high prices can be a political millstone.
    Xander Peters, The Christian Science Monitor, 15 Dec. 2021
  • The film moves in loose accordance with the timeline of Woolf’s novel, and the Orlandos are costumed in millstone collars.
    Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter, 4 Oct. 2023
  • With some quarters seeing the 2008 election less as a promise than as a threat, Obama’s achievement proves to be both a milestone and a millstone.
    Kevin Young, New York Times, 3 Nov. 2017
  • People will always root for someone trying to shed a millstone.
    Bill Pennington, New York Times, 9 Apr. 2017
  • Much of Geller’s work lies underfoot, in tumbled bluestone pavers and pathways, Asian millstones and a spacious stone-slab patio off the kitchen.
    Valerie Easton, The Seattle Times, 12 Apr. 2017
  • But over time, the weight of his masterpiece’s brilliance and his celebrity as a persona writer became a millstone — that and the years of alcohol and drug use that wreaked havoc on his body.
    Billy Witz Sinna Nasseri, New York Times, 10 Feb. 2024
  • Weighing less than a pound and about the size of a standard book, these binoculars can easily slip into your day bag or glove compartment and won’t be a millstone around your neck.
    Katherine Alex Beaven, Travel + Leisure, 17 Jan. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'millstone.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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