tool

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English

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Wikipedia

Several tools in a toolbox

Etymology

From Middle English, from Old English tōl (“tool, implement, instrument”, literally “that with which one prepares something”), from Proto-Germanic *tōlan (“tool”), from Proto-Indo-European *dewǝ- (“to tie to, secure”). Cognate with Scots tuil (“tool, implement, instrument, device”), Icelandic tól (“tool”), Faroese tól (“tool, instrument”). Related to Old English tāwian (“to make, prepare, or cultivate”); see taw, and tow ("fibres used for spinning").[1][2]

Pronunciation

Noun

tool (plural tools)

  1. A mechanical device intended to make a task easier
    Hand me that tool, would you?
    I don't have the right tools to start fiddling around with the engine.
  2. equipment used in a profession, e.g., tools of the trade
    These are the tools of the trade.
  3. Something to perform an operation; an instrument; a means
  4. (computing) A piece of software used to develop software or hardware, or to perform low-level operations.
    The software engineer had been developing lots of EDA tools.
    a tool for recovering deleted files from a disk
  5. A person or group which is used or controlled, usually unwittingly, by another person or group
    He was a tool, no more than a pawn to her.
  6. (slang) penis; (by extension, slang, pejorative) an obnoxious or uptight person
    He won't sell us tickets because it's 3:00, and they went off sale at 2:59. That guy's such a tool.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Translations

mechanical device intended to make a task easier
equipment used in a profession
a software for developers
person or group used or controlled by another
penis
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb

tool (third-person singular simple present tools, present participle tooling, simple past and past participle tooled)

  1. (transitive) to work on or shape with tools, e.g., hand-tooled leather
  2. (transitive) to equip with tools
  3. (transitive) to work very hard
  4. (transitive, slang) to put someone else down (possibly in a subtle, hidden way), and in that way to use them to meet a goal
    Dude, he's not your friend. He's just tooling you.
  5. (transitive, volleyball) to intentionally attack the ball so that it deflects off a blocker out of bounds

Synonyms

  • (volleyball): use

Translations

to work on or shape with tools
to equip with tools
to work very hard
volleyball
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.
Translations to be checked

Anagrams

References

  1. ^ 1893 February 1, Carus, Paul, The philosophy of the tool, Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Company, page 3-4:
  2. ^ 1984 [1960], Hall, John Richard Clark, A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Supplement by Herbert D. Merritt, edition 4, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780802065483, page 338 & 345:

Estonian

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /toːlʲ/

Etymology

From German Stuhl.

Noun

tool (genitive tooli, partitive tooli)

  1. chair

Declension

This Estonian entry needs an inflection template
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