born in a mill

born in a mill

English

Etymology

The loud machinery in a mill may necessitate raising one's voice to be heard.

Phrase

born in a mill

1. Applied to a person who speaks more loudly than necessary.
   • 1578, George Whetstone, Promos and Cassandra, quoted in 1965, Burton Egbert Stevenson, The Macmillan Book of Proverbs, Maxims, and Famous Phrases (page 497)

     Were you born in a mill, curtole? you prate so hye.

   • 1981, Benjamin Rush, ‎Eric T. Carlson, ‎Jeffrey L. Wollock, Benjamin Rush's Lectures on the Mind (page 345)

     Hence among the vulgar, when you speak to them with too loud a voice, they tell you "that they were not born in a mill."

   • 2015, Kirilka Stavreva, Words Like Daggers (page 77)

     Admonished that she should “keep the woman's virtue and be more silent,” she countered “that she was 'born in a mill, begot in a kill, she must have her will,' she could speak no softlier.”