Glossary
Grinding Machine Operator Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential grinding machine operator terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key grinding machine operator vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in grinding machine operator training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Centerless grinding
- Grinding without centers.
- Cylindrical grinder
- Grinds round parts.
- Dressing
- Truing a wheel.
- First article
- First part checked before a run.
- Lockout/tagout
- Energy isolation before servicing.
- PPE
- Personal protective equipment.
- Ra
- Roughness average.
- Ring test
- Checks wheel for cracks.
- Scrap
- Parts that fail inspection.
- SOP
- Standard operating procedure.
- Spark out
- Final passes without feed.
- Surface finish
- Smoothness.
- Surface grinder
- Grinds flat surfaces.
- Tenth
- One ten-thousandth inch.
- Wheel grit
- Abrasive size.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Grinding Machine Operator practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Grinding Machine Operator training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.