Tooling

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. The practice of developing and adjusting implements for manufacturing processes
2. The process involved in creating and modifying equipment essential for production methods
3. The method of designing and refining instruments utilized in the production of goods

Etymology: "Tooling" is the -ing form of the verb "tool", so its story is really the story of "tool" itself. The surprise is that the word originally meant something closer to preparing than to cutting or shaping. Old English "tōl" meant "that with which one prepares something," and it grew out of the verb "tāwian," meaning "to make, prepare, or cultivate." The same root gave us "taw," the old word for working or preparing material, and "tow," the fibres prepared for spinning. So an implement was first defined by its role in getting something ready, not by its metal or shape. The word's Germanic ancestor, reconstructed as "*tōlą," belonged to a family of words about preparing and securing material, and it travelled north into Old Norse as "tól" and survives in modern Icelandic and Faroese. When "tooling" came to mean making manufacturing equipment, it returned to that original sense of preparation: the tools that prepare the goods.

Synonyms: machining, fabrication, shaping, crafting, manufacturing