The meaning of this idiom depends on whether you’re referring to the origin story coming from Benjamin Franklin or Charles Miner, and the spelling of the implement involved depends on whether you are speaking American English (“ax”) or British English (“axe”).
In Benjamin Franklin’s 1791 autobiography, he tells the story of a man who takes a dull, speckled (rusted) ax to a blacksmith to make it perfectly shiny and sharp. The blacksmith agrees, but only if the man turns the grindstone, which is arduous work. As the man keeps turning the grindstone, the blacksmith demands that he work even harder, because the ax is still speckled. The man finally quits, having concluded that a speckled ax is best.
Franklin’s message in the parable was that achieving moral perfection is impossible. Accepting one’s flaws is preferable to striving for the unattainable moral life, which can only lead to frustration. However, this isn’t the context for the modern usage of “an ax to grind.”
The first recorded reference to the specific phrasing “have an ax to grind” was in an 1810 article written by Charles Miner, titled “Who’ll Turn the Grindstone?” Miner was an 18th-century politician known for his anti-slavery views (not to be confused with Idris Elba’s character on The Office, also named Charles Miner).
In that article, Miner described his childhood experience of being approached by a stranger asking if his father had a grindstone with which to sharpen an ax. Using flattery, the stranger inveigled Miner to sharpen the ax for him. After he accomplished that task, the stranger turned on Miner, who had worked so long and hard, and chastised him for being late for school.
Miner reflected on that memorable day: “[O]ften have I thought of it since. When I see a Merchant, over polite to his customers, begging them to taste a little brandy, and throwing half his goods on the counter — thinks I, that man has an ax to grind.” In Miner’s take, both the stranger and the merchant used insincere flattery to accomplish their goals.
Miner then applied the same concept more broadly: “When I see a man flattering the people, making great professions of attachment to liberty, who is in private life a tyrant, Methinks, look out good people, that fellow would set you to turning grindstone.”
Today, the phrase “ax to grind” has evolved to mean “an ulterior and often selfish underlying purpose,” not necessarily always rooted in flattery. Whether the true origin and meaning lies in Franklin or Miner, it’s good to avoid anyone with an ax to grind.
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