Strickle

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. A straight rod or blade used to level the surface of grain, concrete, or other materials ; to draw such a tool across a surface to make it even and smooth
2. An instrument with a flat edge for scraping and flattening surfaces ; to pass this tool over something to level or finish it
3. A leveling device drawn across wet or granular material to achieve a flat surface ; to smooth or flatten using such a straightedge

Etymology: A strickle is a flat wooden bar or roller used to level off grain, salt, or lime in a measuring vessel, so that the measure holds exactly its stated volume rather than a heap. The tool gets its name from Old English "stricel," which is built from "strick," a word for a stroke or stroking motion, plus the diminutive suffix "-le." The name therefore describes what the tool does: it makes a single smooth pass across the top of the measure. The word's relatives are found across the North Sea. Middle Dutch had "strijkel" and "streekel," forms that point to the same stroking sense, and the English term passed into Middle English as "strikile," "strikelle," and "strikyll." The pattern of a small stroking tool named after the act of stroking is a simple one, so the history here is largely a matter of a transparent compound plus diminutive rather than a dramatic shift in meaning.

Synonyms: strike, straightedge, scraper