chisel
pronunciation
How to pronounce chisel in British English:
UK [ˈtʃɪzl]
How to pronounce chisel in American English:
US [ˈtʃɪzəl]
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- Noun:
- an edge tool with a flat steel blade with a cutting edge
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- Verb:
- engage in deceitful behavior; practice trickery or fraud
- deprive somebody of something by deceit
- carve with a chisel
Word Origin
- chisel
- chisel: [14] Chisel and scissors are related, for both come ultimately from Latin caedere ‘cut’ (source of a range of other English words from cement to concise and decide). From its past participle caesus was formed an unrecorded Vulgar Latin term for a cutting tool, probably *caesellus. This must have become changed at some point to *cīsellus, probably under the influence of late Latin cīsōrium (source of English scissors), itself derived from caedere. This passed into Old Northern French as chisel, and thence into English. (The modern French equivalent, in the plural, is ciseaux ‘scissors’.)=> cement, concise, decide, precise, scissors
- chisel (n.)
- early 14c., from Anglo-French cisel, Old French cisel "chisel," in plural, "scissors, shears" (12c., Modern French ciseau), from Vulgar Latin *cisellum "cutting tool," from Latin caesellum, diminutive of caesus, past participle of caedere "to cut" (see -cide). Related: Chiseled; chiseling.
- chisel (v.)
- c. 1500, "to break with a chisel," from chisel (n.). Slang sense of "to cheat, defraud" is first recorded in 1808 as chizzel; origin and connection to the older word are obscure (compare slang sense of gouge); chiseler in this sense is from 1918. Related: Chiseled; chiseling.
Example
- 1. Later , after he taught me the proper use of hammer and chisel , I began to hollow out the hull .
- 2. We are like jewels , shaped with the hammer and chisel of adversity .
- 3. Trembling with fear , they spotted an old man with a hammer and chisel , chipping away at one of the headstones .
- 4. The detective on the phone explained how someone had sprayed a canister of freon into the dead-bolt lock and then tapped the lock with a cold chisel to shatter the cylinder .
- 5. The asian effect has driven down even the relative price of simple manufactures : a chisel that cost 3 in 1970 has risen , but to 10 not 25 .