tool
Forms
- Plural
- tools
- present (v1)
- tool
- past (v2)
- tooled
- past participle (v3)
- tooled
- present participle
- tooling
- 3rd person singular
- tools
Definitions
1.Any physical device meant to ease or do a task.
- A stapler is a tool for attaching papers to others.
- A screwdriver is a tool that no household should be without.
- I don't have the right tools to start fiddling around with the engine.
2.Anything that aids someone to perform an operation; an instrument; a means.
- Idleness is a tool of the devil.
- A spreadsheet app and a bookkeeping app are some of the principal tools of a bookkeeper.
- What was the need of a man to do that? "One stick at a time;" if Ned could not do that, he was a poor tool. Ah, a poor tool he proved to be.
3.A piece of software used to develop software or hardware, or to perform low-level operations.
- The software engineer had been developing lots of EDA tools.
4.A person or group which is used or controlled, usually unwittingly, by another person or group, a pawn.
- She was a tool of the pharmaceutical lobby.
- He was a tool of a foreign influence operation.
1.To work very hard.
2.To put down another person (possibly in a subtle, hidden way), and in that way to use him or her to meet a goal.(slang)
- Dude, he's not your friend. He's just tooling you.
3.To work on or shape with tools, e.g., hand-tooled leather.
4.To equip with tools.
Frequency
Overall
Common· #1093
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Common
- Academic
- Uncommon
- Literature
- Rare
Related words
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English tool, tol, from Old English tōl (“tool, implement, instrument”, literally “that with which one prepares something”), perhaps borrowed from Old Norse tól, but at any rate ultimately from Proto-Germanic *tōlą (“that which is used in preparation, tool”), from Proto-Indo-European *dewh₂- (“to tie to, secure”), equivalent to taw (“to prepare”) + -le (agent suffix).