Tool

How to spell tool

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce tool

What does tool mean?

1. nounA handheld device or implement used to carry out a particular task.
2. verbTo shape, work, or decorate something using a tool, especially to impress a design into leather.

Tool in a sentence

• noun

  Every tool in the workshop hangs on its own labelled hook.

• verb

  The craftsman likes to tool intricate floral patterns into each leather wallet.

• noun

  A spreadsheet is a useful tool for tracking the household budget.

• verb

  She learned to tool the cover of the journal with a simple border design.

Where does tool come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a thoroughly native English word, descending from the Old English 'tol', which simply meant an instrument or implement used to do work. The Old English form goes back to a Germanic root tied to the verb meaning 'to make' or 'to prepare', so a tool was literally a thing you used to fashion or get something ready. The same ancestral idea survives in related northern languages, including Old Norse 'tol' with much the same sense. The spelling settled with the double 'o' to capture the long vowel sound, the same pattern you see in 'pool', 'cool', and 'spool'. From its early concrete meaning the word later stretched into figurative use, so that a person, a method, or a piece of software can all be called a tool for achieving an end.

How the word is built

• tool (from Old English tol: an instrument)
• no affixes