Mattock
Encyclopedia
A mattock is a versatile hand tool
, used for digging and chopping, similar to the pickaxe
. It has a long handle, and a stout head, which combines an axe
blade and an adze
(cutter mattock) or a pick and an adze (pick mattock).
The handle of a mattock fits into the oval eye in the head, and is fixed by striking the head end of the handle against a solid surface, such as a tree stump, a rock or firm ground. A similar action, while holding the head, allows the handle to be removed. In the eastern United States
, mattock handles are often fitted with a screw below the head and parallel with it, to prevent the head slipping down the handle; in the western United States
, where tools are more commonly dismantled for transport, this is rarely done.
Mattocks are "the most versatile of hand-planting tools". They can be used to chop into the ground with the adze and pull the soil towards the user, opening a slit to plant into. They can also be used to dig holes for planting into, and are particularly useful where there is a thick layer of matted sod
. The use of a mattock can be tiring because of the effort needed to drive the blade into the ground, and the amount of bending and stooping involved.
The adze of a mattock is useful for digging or hoeing
, especially in hard soil.
Cutter mattocks are used in rural Africa for removing stumps
from fields, including unwanted banana
suckers
.
in Asia Minor
and Ancient Greece
., and mattocks were the most commonly depicted tool in Byzantine
manuscripts of Hesiod
's Works and Days
.
Mattocks made from antler
s first appear in the British Isles
in the Late Mesolithic
. They were probably used chiefly for digging, and may have been related to the rise of agriculture
. Mattocks made of whalebone
were used for tasks including flensing
– stripping blubber
from the carcass of a whale
– by the broch people of Scotland
and by the Inuit
.
s in other Germanic languages
, and similar words in various Celtic languages
are borrowings
from the English (e.g. , ). It may be derived from the unattested Vulgar Latin
, meaning club or cudgel
. The New English Dictionary of 1906 interpreted mattock as a diminutive
, but there is no root to derive it from, and no semantic
reason for the diminutive formation. Forms such as mathooke, motthook and mathook were produced by folk etymology. Dubious connections have also been suggested with words in Balto-Slavic languages
, including Old Church Slavonic
and Lithuanian
.
While the noun
"mattock" is attested from Old English onwards, the transitive verb
"to mattock" or "to mattock up" first appeared in the mid-17th century.
Hand tool
A hand tool is a device for performing work on a material or a physical system using only hands. The hand tools can be manually used employing force, or electrically powered, using electrical current...
, used for digging and chopping, similar to the pickaxe
Pickaxe
A pickaxe or pick is a hand tool with a hard head attached perpendicular to the handle.Some people make the distinction that a pickaxe has a head with a pointed end and a flat end, and a pick has both ends pointed, or only one end; but most people use the words to mean the same thing.The head is...
. It has a long handle, and a stout head, which combines an axe
Axe
The axe, or ax, is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood; to harvest timber; as a weapon; and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol...
blade and an adze
Adze
An adze is a tool used for smoothing or carving rough-cut wood in hand woodworking. Generally, the user stands astride a board or log and swings the adze downwards towards his feet, chipping off pieces of wood, moving backwards as they go and leaving a relatively smooth surface behind...
(cutter mattock) or a pick and an adze (pick mattock).
Description
A mattock has a shaft, typically made of wood, which is about 3–4 ft (0.9144–1.2 ) long. The head comprises two ends, opposite each other, and separated by a central eye; a mattock head typically weighs 3 pound. The form of the head determines its identity and its use:- The head of a pick mattock combines a pick and an adzeAdzeAn adze is a tool used for smoothing or carving rough-cut wood in hand woodworking. Generally, the user stands astride a board or log and swings the adze downwards towards his feet, chipping off pieces of wood, moving backwards as they go and leaving a relatively smooth surface behind...
. It is "one of the best tools for grubbing in hard soils and rocky terrain". The adze may be sharpened, but the pick rarely is; it is generally squared rather than bevelBevelA beveled edge refers to an edge of a structure that is not perpendicular to the faces of the piece. The words bevel and chamfer overlap in usage; in general usage they are often interchanged, while in technical usage they may sometimes be differentiated as shown in the image at right.-Cutting...
ed.
- The head of a cutter mattock combines an axeAxeThe axe, or ax, is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood; to harvest timber; as a weapon; and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol...
with an adze. Thus, it has two flat blades, facing away from each other, and one rotated 90° relative to the other. The blade is designed to be used for cutting through rootRootIn vascular plants, the root is the organ of a plant that typically lies below the surface of the soil. This is not always the case, however, since a root can also be aerial or aerating . Furthermore, a stem normally occurring below ground is not exceptional either...
s.
The handle of a mattock fits into the oval eye in the head, and is fixed by striking the head end of the handle against a solid surface, such as a tree stump, a rock or firm ground. A similar action, while holding the head, allows the handle to be removed. In the eastern United States
Eastern United States
The Eastern United States, the American East, or simply the East is traditionally defined as the states east of the Mississippi River. The first two tiers of states west of the Mississippi have traditionally been considered part of the West, but can be included in the East today; usually in...
, mattock handles are often fitted with a screw below the head and parallel with it, to prevent the head slipping down the handle; in the western United States
Western United States
.The Western United States, commonly referred to as the American West or simply "the West," traditionally refers to the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. Because the U.S. expanded westward after its founding, the meaning of the West has evolved over time...
, where tools are more commonly dismantled for transport, this is rarely done.
Uses
Sod
Sod or turf is grass and the part of the soil beneath it held together by the roots, or a piece of thin material.The term sod may be used to mean turf grown and cut specifically for the establishment of lawns...
. The use of a mattock can be tiring because of the effort needed to drive the blade into the ground, and the amount of bending and stooping involved.
The adze of a mattock is useful for digging or hoeing
Hoe (tool)
A hoe is an ancient and versatile agricultural tool used to move small amounts of soil. Common goals include weed control by agitating the surface of the soil around plants, piling soil around the base of plants , creating narrow furrows and shallow trenches for planting seeds and bulbs, to chop...
, especially in hard soil.
Cutter mattocks are used in rural Africa for removing stumps
Tree stump
After a tree has been cut and felled, the stump or tree stump is usually a small remaining portion of the trunk with the roots still in the ground. Stumps may show the age-defining rings of a tree. The study of these rings is known as dendrochronology....
from fields, including unwanted banana
Banana
Banana is the common name for herbaceous plants of the genus Musa and for the fruit they produce. Bananas come in a variety of sizes and colors when ripe, including yellow, purple, and red....
suckers
Basal shoot
A basal shoot, root sprout, adventitious shoot, water sprout or sucker is a shoot or cane which grows from a bud at the base of a tree or shrub or from its roots. This shoot then becomes, or takes the form of, a singular plant. A plant that produces suckers is referred to as surculose...
.
History
As a simple but effective tool, mattocks have a long history. Their shape was already established by the Bronze AgeBronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
in Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
and Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
., and mattocks were the most commonly depicted tool in Byzantine
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
manuscripts of Hesiod
Hesiod
Hesiod was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and...
's Works and Days
Works and Days
Works and Days is a didactic poem of some 800 verses written by the ancient Greek poet Hesiod around 700 BC. At its center, the Works and Days is a farmer's almanac in which Hesiod instructs his brother Perses in the agricultural arts...
.
Mattocks made from antler
Antler
Antlers are the usually large, branching bony appendages on the heads of most deer species.-Etymology:Antler originally meant the lowest tine, the "brow tine"...
s first appear in the British Isles
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...
in the Late Mesolithic
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....
. They were probably used chiefly for digging, and may have been related to the rise of agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
. Mattocks made of whalebone
Baleen
Baleen or whalebone is a filter-feeder system inside the mouths of baleen whales. The baleen system works when a whale opens its mouth underwater and then water pours into the whale's mouth. The whale then pushes the water out, and animals such as krill are filtered by the baleen and remain as food...
were used for tasks including flensing
Flensing
Flensing is the removing of the outer integument of whales. English whalemen called it "flenching", while American whalemen called it "cutting-in".-Open-boat:-Shore and Bay whaling:...
– stripping blubber
Blubber
Blubber is a thick layer of vascularized adipose tissue found under the skin of all cetaceans, pinnipeds and sirenians.-Description:Lipid-rich, collagen fiber–laced blubber comprises the hypodermis and covers the whole body, except for parts of the appendages, strongly attached to the musculature...
from the carcass of a whale
Whale
Whale is the common name for various marine mammals of the order Cetacea. The term whale sometimes refers to all cetaceans, but more often it excludes dolphins and porpoises, which belong to suborder Odontoceti . This suborder also includes the sperm whale, killer whale, pilot whale, and beluga...
– by the broch people of Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
and by the Inuit
Inuit
The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...
.
Etymology
The word mattock, pronounced ˈmætək, is of unclear origin. There are no cognateCognate
In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...
s in other Germanic languages
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
, and similar words in various Celtic languages
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...
are borrowings
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
from the English (e.g. , ). It may be derived from the unattested Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin is any of the nonstandard forms of Latin from which the Romance languages developed. Because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography. All written works used Classical Latin, with very few exceptions...
, meaning club or cudgel
Club (weapon)
A club is among the simplest of all weapons. A club is essentially a short staff, or stick, usually made of wood, and wielded as a weapon since prehistoric times....
. The New English Dictionary of 1906 interpreted mattock as a diminutive
Diminutive
In language structure, a diminutive, or diminutive form , is a formation of a word used to convey a slight degree of the root meaning, smallness of the object or quality named, encapsulation, intimacy, or endearment...
, but there is no root to derive it from, and no semantic
Semantics
Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....
reason for the diminutive formation. Forms such as mathooke, motthook and mathook were produced by folk etymology. Dubious connections have also been suggested with words in Balto-Slavic languages
Balto-Slavic languages
The Balto-Slavic language group traditionally comprises Baltic and Slavic languages, belonging to the Indo-European family of languages. Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European branch, which points to the period of common development...
, including Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...
and Lithuanian
Lithuanian language
Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
.
While the noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
"mattock" is attested from Old English onwards, the transitive verb
Transitive verb
In syntax, a transitive verb is a verb that requires both a direct subject and one or more objects. The term is used to contrast intransitive verbs, which do not have objects.-Examples:Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs:...
"to mattock" or "to mattock up" first appeared in the mid-17th century.