mattock

From Middle English mattok (“mattock, pickaxe”), from Old English mattuc, meottoc, mettac (“mattock, fork, trident”), from Proto-Germanic *mattukaz (“mattock, ploughshare”), from Proto-Indo-European *matn-, *mat- (“a hoe, ploughshare”). Related to Old High German medela (“plough”), Middle High German metze, metz (“knife”), Latin mateola (“implement for digging in the soil”), Polish motyka (“hoe, mattock”), Russian моты́га (motýga, “hoe, mattock”), Lithuanian matikkas (“mattock”), Sanskrit मत्य (matyà, “harrow, roller, club”). More at mason.

mattock (plural mattocks)

1. An agricultural tool whose blades are at right angles to the body, similar to a pickaxe.

mattock (third-person singular simple present mattocks, present participle mattocking, simple past and past participle mattocked)

1. To cut or dig with a mattock.

• adze
• hoe
• pick
• twibill

• Mattock on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Mattocks on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons