Mattocks

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A heavy hand tool with a pick-like head on one side and a flat adze-like blade on the other, used for breaking and loosening soil ; a broad, heavy pick used to break up hard ground
2. An earth-breaking implement whose head combines an axe-style edge with a cutting blade, used to dig through tough soil ; a stout pick with a wide head for splitting hard earth
3. A two-headed digging tool that cuts and chops through roots and dense ground ; a heavy pick whose broad blade is swung to break up compacted earth

Etymology: Mattocks are a plural, the form of "mattock", a heavy digging tool with an adze-like blade set across a handle. The English word goes back to Old English "mattuc" or "meottoc", which meant a mattock, a fork or a trident, and it came from a Proto-West Germanic root "*mattjuk" that meant a mattock or ploughshare. Its distant ancestor is a Proto-Indo-European root for cutting or reaping, the same root behind words for knives and ploughing across Europe and beyond. The tool's relatives show how far the name spread. Old High German "medela" meant plough, Middle High German "metze" meant knife, Polish "motyka" and Russian "motyga" mean hoe or mattock, and Lithuanian "matikkas" names the same implement. The shared pattern suggests a family of cutting and turning tools that shared one ancient label before each language gave it its own shape.

Synonyms: pickaxe, grubbing hoe