Spatula

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈspætjʊlə/

Definitions

1. A broad, flat implement often utilized in kitchens to turn or spread food items
2. A versatile kitchen and laboratory tool designed for flipping, spreading, or lifting food and other substances efficiently
3. A utensil with a flat, broad blade used primarily for flipping food or applying spreads

Etymology: The Latin "spatula" was a diminutive of "spatha," a broad, flat blade or tool, which itself came from the Ancient Greek "spáthē," meaning a broad blade of wood or metal. So the kitchen implement is named for the same flat, blade-like shape that the Greeks described long before anyone was flipping pancakes with one. The Greek root did not stay confined to kitchens. The same ancestor gave English "spathe," the large leaf-like sheath that wraps around a flower cluster in plants such as arums, and "spauld," an older English word for the shoulder blade, a flat bone. Linguists call words like these doublets: forms that split off from one source and took different paths into English, so that a shoulder, a flower sheath and a spatula share a single flat-bladed ancestor.

Synonyms: turner, flipper, spreader