Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A digging tool with a flat blade set at right angles to the handle.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An instrument for loosening the soil in digging, shaped like a pickax, but having its ends broad instead of pointed.
Wiktionary
- n. An agricultural tool whose blades are at right angles to the body, similar to a pickax.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. An implement for digging and grubbing. The head has two long steel blades, one like an adz and the other like a narrow ax or the point of a pickax.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a kind of pick that is used for digging; has a flat blade set at right angles to the handle
Etymologies
- 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"), Russian мотыга (motýga, "hoe, mattock"), Lithuanian (matikkas, "mattock"), Sanskrit मत्य (matyà, "harrow, roller, club"). More at mason. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old English mattuc, perhaps from Vulgar Latin *matteūca, club; akin to *mattea; see mace1. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“[320-5] A mattock is a two-bladed instrument for digging.”
“A mattock is a digging tool that is used to break up soil so that you can shovel it easier.”
“These new arrivals from the continent renamed the landscape, towns, and many of the rivers in their own tongue so that only a handful of pre-Anglo Saxon British words-such as mattock, brock, bannock-remain in modern English.”
“Matthew needs to get to the bottom line of this Bushian toilet flush: all the American consumer ultimately needs is a mattock, an axe, some seed corn, and an iron pot.”
“Fred Phelps beat his wife and his children with his fists, a leather barber strap, or the wooden handle of a mattock, a tool like an ax.”
The Huffington Post: Son Leaves 'America's Most Hated Family,' And God, Behind
“A mattock and shovel lay by the verge of the grave.”
““To Corri-nan-shian, Father,” answered the youth. — “Martin and Dan, take pickaxe and mattock, and follow me if you be men!””
“Ravenswood found that the man of the last mattock was absent at a bridal, being fiddler as well as grave-digger to the vicinity.”
“Such trenches are ordinarily extremely deep; a man sweats, digs, toils all night — for it must be done at night; he wets his shirt, burns out his candle, breaks his mattock, and when he arrives at the bottom of the hole, when he lays his hand on the”
““Give me your mattock and wait a couple of minutes for me.””
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘mattock’.
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phrontistery - m
from phrontistery.info
multiloculate, multilocation, multiflorous, multifid, multifarious, multicipital, multeity, multarticulate, multanimous, mulse, mullock, mullion and 898 more...
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TECH - tools
A very wide category. There are possibly tens of thousands tool words in each of the world's languages.
broom, brush, feather duster, floor buffer, hataki, mop, mop bucket cart, needlegun scaler, pipe cleaner, pressure washer, sandblaster, sponge and 286 more...
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End in -ock
Inspired by fbharjo (see spitchcock).
spitchcock, hillock, willock, peacock, pajock, penock, yapock, sycock, bittock, bawcock, burrock, cammock and 168 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Down on the Farm
All things farm and agriculture related.
barn, tractor, cow, hay, horse, pig, corn, plough, irrigation, subsidies, crops, plant and 260 more...
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Archaeology
Words for shovelbums!
trowel, mattock, chopper, n-transform, c-transform, taphonomy, processual, post-processual, microarchaeology, site, horizon, battleship curve and 33 more...
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The Tool Shed
Are you the sharpest tool in the shed? If you had to live in the tool shed -- what tool would you be?
rake-ish, hoe, hedge (my bet) cl..., jig (is up) saw, sump pump, pickaxe, (go) tiller (on a..., scythe not, coping saw, tack(y) hammer, rasp, plumb bob and 27 more...
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Greek Fire
being items related to mediaeval warfare, arms and armaments.
caltrop, ballista, trebuchet, mangonel, petard, onager, petrary, hurlbat, francisca, crossbow, longbow, flail and 97 more...
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Chennessy's Words
philistine, messianic, dyad, cult, bourgeois, blot, ploy, polyglot, lingua franca, cumbersome, lumber, petit-bourgeois and 446 more...
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Nabokov vocabulary
verisimilitude, geminate, pedantic, intervestibular, equilibrist, nictitating, anastomosis, quiddity, torus, cacahuete, undulation, pensum and 135 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, M
metamerism, malady, margin, marauder, maverick, mercury, mirth, mandible, macerate, meteor, manumission, mica and 292 more...
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The Confidence Man
Words to remember from Melville's "The Confidence Man"
chevalier, hawk, unalloyed, ex-officio, scruple, pertinacity, epithet, gilt, bedizen, embrasure, escritoire, squaw and 278 more...
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Words I Learned on FreeRice.com
A place for me to keep all these weird words, whether I guessed them correctly or not.
pennoncel, serval, tautological, redact, ganef, candent, shaitan, bifid, osteal, ensiform, helve, ecdysis and 100 more...
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What's next here?
thunderhead, thundercloud, cumulus, cumulonimbus, fibrous, hazy, glaciated, cirrus, nimbus, meteorology, fahrenheit, thermoscope and 285 more...
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Ute
Durable items invented by Hom. Sap.
alpenhorn, matchbox, plinth, pillow, cantilever, fulcrum, troika, cloverleaf, nib, wheelbarrow, dictabelt, cockpit and 184 more...
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Objects and Things
anteroom, flagon, cocotte, ambry, cloche, pate, vespiary, fricassee, carousal, psoas, tome, aperture and 38 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for mattock.

jennarenn Wordie seems to be well-represented in VA. :D Jul 29, 2008
plethora *wince* ouch Jul 29, 2008
lyron Just a quick story - we had a mattock in my house in Virginia when I grew up, and it turns out that the metal part at the end of the handle (both blades) fits on the tapered handle in such a way that the only reason it stays at the end is due to the centrifugal force generated when you swing it. So my father was digging something with it (or cutting tree roots or something like that) and so I decided to pick it up and imitate him - I was about 10, so I was pretty weak, and when I picked it up and when I slowly slung it over my head, the whole blade end slid down and smashed the bejeezus out of my hands -
Jul 29, 2008
reesetee Resistance is feudal. Jul 28, 2008
chained_bear Ah. I gotcha. Thanks. Jul 25, 2008
yarb I suppose I was thinking of a broader sense of peasant, connoting a subservient or lowest socio-economic grouping. Jul 25, 2008
chained_bear Umm... I thought the system of feudalism was what created peasants--that you couldn't actually be a peasant without being feudal. Of course i could be wrong... can you enlighten me? Jul 25, 2008
yarb In my opinion a peasant can be revolting, but not feudal. Others may differ. Jul 25, 2008
chained_bear Cool. I am totally down with revolting feudal peasants. (P.S. is there another kind of revolting peasant?) Jul 25, 2008
yarb Along with the pitchfork, the favoured weapon of the revolting feudal peasant. Jul 25, 2008