Glossary
Milling Machine Operator Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential milling machine operator terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key milling machine operator vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in milling machine operator training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Chip load
- Material per tooth.
- Climb milling
- Cutter moves with feed.
- Conventional milling
- Cutter moves against feed.
- DRO
- Digital readout.
- Edge finder
- Locates edges.
- End mill
- Rotating cutter.
- First article
- First part checked before a run.
- Lockout/tagout
- Energy isolation before servicing.
- Recessed area.
- PPE
- Personal protective equipment.
- Scrap
- Parts that fail inspection.
- SOP
- Standard operating procedure.
- Squaring
- Making faces 90 degrees.
- Tramming
- Squaring the head.
- Vise
- Holds parts.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Milling Machine Operator practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Milling Machine Operator training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.