pestle

Etymology

From Middle English pestel, pestell, from Old French pestel, from Latin pistillum, from pīnsō (“pound, beat”). Doublet of pistil.

noun

1. A club-shaped, round-headed stick used in a mortar to pound, crush, rub or grind things.
2. (archaic) A constable's or bailiff's staff; so called from its shape.
   […]whether the chopping-knife or their pestles were the better weapons 1611, George Chapman, May-Day
3. The leg and leg bone of an animal, especially of a pig.
   a pestle of pork

verb

1. (transitive) To pound, crush, rub or grind, as in a mortar with a pestle.
   ‘Next time, boy, that you use that mortar for garlic, I will personally knock out your brain, place it in the said mortar, pestle it to a fine paste and give it to Dick Purser for feeding the dogs.’ 2020, Hilary Mantel, The Mirror and the Light, Fourth Estate, page 47