mattock

Etymology

From Middle English mattok (“mattock, pickaxe”), from Old English mattuc, meottoc, mettoc (“mattock, fork, trident”), from Proto-Germanic *mattukaz (“mattock, ploughshare”), from Proto-Indo-European *met- (“to cut, reap”). 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.

noun

1. An agricultural tool whose blades are at right angles to the body, similar to a pickaxe.
   Workmen, breaking up an old floor, have come to him, mattocks in their hands, dismayed: ‘Mr Richard, see what we have turned up ...’ 2020, Hilary Mantel, The Mirror and the Light, Fourth Estate, page 695

verb

1. To cut or dig with a mattock.