Whetston

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A fine-grained abrasive stone used for sharpening the edges of knives, scythes and other cutting tools
2. An abrasive block, often rubbed with water or oil, that is drawn along a blade to restore its sharp edge
3. A rough stone employed to hone and grind the cutting edge of a tool such as an axe or a chisel

Etymology: Whetstone is an unusually transparent compound: "whet" is an Old English verb meaning to sharpen an edge, and "stone" is the familiar word, so the name simply means a stone for sharpening. Its ancestry is older than the English language itself. "Whet" comes from Old English "hwettan," which belongs to the same Germanic family as "hwæt," the word behind "what," and shares a root with the adjective "keen" in its original sense of sharp or bold. The verb "whet" survives mainly in phrases like "whet your appetite," where the idea of sharpening has been transferred from a blade to a desire. The noun is recorded in Old English, so the word has been part of the language since at least the Anglo-Saxon period, long before the sharpening tools of later centuries. The spelling "whetstone" has stayed stable, and it is still the everyday term for the abrasive block a cook or carpenter uses to put an edge on a blade.