awl
Definitions
Cars & Driving
- noun a tool with a sharp point and a fluted blade for piercing holes
Construction
- A hand tool used for piercing holes, particularly in leather. Often fitted with a needle for sewing heavy materials.
Origin & History of “awl”
The Old English form, æl, came from a hypothetical Germanic base *āl-, which had a probable relative in Sanskrit ārā. The compound bradawl was formed in the 19th century using the term brad ‘thin flat nail’, which came originally from Old Norse broddr ‘spike’. Awls, tools for making holes to take nails, are part of the shoemaker’s traditional set of implements: hence the apparently quite recent, early 20th-century rhyming slang cobbler’s awls (cobblers for short) for ‘balls’.
