Scissors to Grind

Work to do; purpose to serve.

“That the Emperor of Austria [in the Servian and Bulgarian war, 1885] has his own scissors to grind goes without saying; but for the present it is Russia who keeps the ball rolling.“—Newspaper paragraph, November, 1885.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.