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mattock

noun
/ˈmætək/

Etymology

From Middle English mattok (“mattock, pickaxe”), from Old English mattuc, meottoc, mettoc (“mattock, fork, trident”), from Proto-West Germanic *mattjuk (“mattock, ploughshare”), from Proto-Indo-European *met- (“to cut, reap”). Related to Old High German medela (“plough”), Middle High German metze, metz (“knife”), Latin mateola (“implement for digging in the soil”), Polish motyka (“hoe, mattock”), Russian моты́га (motýga, “hoe, mattock”), Lithuanian matikkas (“mattock”), Sanskrit मत्य (matyà, “harrow, roller, club”). More at mason.

  1. derived from *met-✻ — “to cut, reap”
  2. inherited from *mattjuk✻ — “mattock, ploughshare”
  3. inherited from mattuc
  4. inherited from mattok — “mattock, pickaxe”

Definitions

  1. An agricultural tool whose blades are at right angles to the body, similar to a pickaxe.

    • Workmen, breaking up an old floor, have come to him, mattocks in their hands, dismayed: ‘Mr Richard, see what we have turned up ...’

  2. To cut or dig with a mattock.

  3. A surname.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for mattock. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA