There used to be a flour mill at the edge of the village.
Tips
usage
The mò reading is the mill-apparatus word - refers to the physical millstone or the act of grinding grain in a mill. Key compounds: 石磨 (stone mill), 磨坊 (flour mill), 推磨 (push / turn the millstone), 水磨 (water mill), 磨豆机 (bean/coffee grinder). The bound colloquialism 磨叽 (to dilly-dally, northern dialect) also uses mò.
memory
Easy rule: if the word names a thing (a mill, a millstone) or the act of running such a thing, it's mò. If it names an action of rubbing, polishing, sharpening, or wearing-down, it's mó. So 磨刀 (sharpen a knife - action) but 石磨 (stone mill - thing).
Same stone radical, even more directly invoked here: a 磨 is literally a stone wheel or pair of round stones used to crush grain. The radical names the object as well as the action.
Same phonetic 麻 as in the mó reading. The tone-only shift from mó (action) to mò (thing / apparatus) is a common word-class derivation in Mandarin - verbs going to fourth tone for the noun form.
