auger

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of various hand tools, typically having a threaded shank and cross handle, used for boring holes in wood or ice.
2. n. A drill bit.
3. n. A machine having a rotating helical shaft for boring into the earth.
4. n. A rotating helical shaft used to convey material, as in a snow blower.
5. v. To drill or bore using an auger.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. An instrument for boring holes larger than those bored by a bit or gimlet. It consists of an iron shank ending in a steel bit, and a handle placed at right angles with the shank. The augers formerly made with a straight channel or groove are called pod-augers; augers of the modern form, with spiral channels, are called screw-augers. The ordinary screw-auger is forged as a paralleled blade of steel, which is twisted while red-hot. The end terminates in a worm, by which the auger is gradually drawn into the work, like the gimlet. Another form is that of a cylindrical shaft, around which is brazed a single fin or rib, the end being made into a worm, and immediately behind the worm a small diametrical mortise is formed for the reception of a detached cutter, which exactly resembles the chisel-edge of the center-bit. Expanding augers have cutters susceptible of radial adjustment for boring holes of different sizes. In the slotting-auger, used for channels, mortises, etc., the cutting lips are upon the side of the auger as well as at the end, and the piece to be grooved is fed against them laterally. Mortises are cut by causing the auger to penetrate to the proper depth, and then feeding the work laterally to the required length. The two rounded ends of the mortise are then squared with a chisel. The square-hole auger is an auger revolving within a rectangular tube or boring, whose lower edge is sharpened to cut away the remaining substance of the square circumscribing the round hole which the auger bores a little in advance.
2. n. An instrument for boring the soil. Such an instrument used in setting posts is called a post-hole auger, and one for ascertaining the nature of the subsoil, the presence or absence of water, etc., is called specifically an earth-boring auger. Augers for the latter use are of various kinds, but they all consist of three parts, namely: a handle by which two or more men can work the instrument; the bit, mouth, or cutting piece; and rods for connecting the handle with the bit or cutting piece.

Wiktionary

1. n. A carpenter's tool for boring holes larger than those bored by a gimlet.
2. n. A snake or plumber's snake (plumbing tool).
3. n. A tool used to bore holes in the ground, e.g. for fence posts
4. n. A hollow drill used to take core samples of soil, ice, etc. for scientific study.
5. v. To use an auger; to drill a hole using an auger.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A carpenter's tool for boring holes larger than those bored by a gimlet. It has a handle placed crosswise by which it is turned with both hands. A pod auger is one with a straight channel or groove, like the half of a bean pod. A screw auger has a twisted blade, by the spiral groove of which the chips are discharge.
2. n. An instrument for boring or perforating soils or rocks, for determining the quality of soils, or the nature of the rocks or strata upon which they lie, and for obtaining water.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. hand tool for boring holes
2. n. a long flexible steel coil for dislodging stoppages in curved pipes