| 释义 |
▪ I. mattock, n.|ˈmætək|
Forms: 1 mattoc, mettoc, metoc, meottuc, 1–2 mattuc, 4–6 mattok, 4, 6 matock, 4–7 matok(e, 5 mattoke, 5–6 mattokk, 6–7 mattocke, (6 mathooke), 7–9 mathook, 6– mattock.
[OE. mattuc, meottuc masc., of unknown origin: the Welsh matog and Gael. madag are from Eng.
The ending would appear to be the dim. suffix in OE. bulluc bullock. The word has not been found in continental Teut.; its relation, if any, to the synonymous Russian motyka, Lith. matikkas, is not clear.]
An agricultural tool (of which there are several varieties) used for loosening hard ground, grubbing up trees, etc. It has a socketed steel head (fixed transversely at the end of a straight handle), having on one side a blade shaped like that of an adze, and sometimes on the other side a kind of pick.
a700Epinal Gloss. 565 Lagones, mettocas. a800Corpus Gloss. (Hessels) L. 161 Ligones, meottucas. c893K. ælfred Oros. iv. viii. §2 Þonne het he hiene mid fyre onhætan, & siþþan mid mattucun heawan. a1100Gerefa in Anglia (1886) IX. 263 Mattuc, ipping-iren, scear. 1303R. Brunne Handl. Synne 940 Mattok is a pykeys. 1382Wyclif Joel iii. 10 Bete to gydre..ȝour pikoysis, or mattokis [1388 mattokkis], in to speris. c1420Pallad. on Husb. i. 1153 Yet tolis mo, The mattok, twibil, picoys forth to go. 1494Fabyan Chron. iv. lxix. 48 He..with a Pykax or Mattoke, with his owne hande, breke the grounde. a1533Ld. Berners Huon xxx. 93 With pykes & mattokes they brake downe a corner toure. 1588Shakes. Tit. A. iv. iii. 11 'Tis you must dig with Mattocke, and with Spade. 1649Jer. Taylor Gt. Exemp. iii. xiv. 13 Repentance..like a mattock and spade breaks away all the roughnesses of the passage. a1734North Exam. iii. viii. §14 (1740) 592 Spades and Mathooks. 1771Robertson Hist. Amer. (1778) I. iv. 335 After digging the field with wooden mattocks, they sowed or planted it. 1824Loudon Encycl. Gard. (ed. 2) §1296 The mattock..is sometimes called a crow, and also a grubbing-axe, hoe-axe, &c. 1848Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc. IX. ii. 537 Stony or gravelly, so as to require..to be pecked with a mathook or pick. 1851Stephens Bk. Farm (ed. 2) II. 652/1 The common mattock which on one arm has a horizontal cutting face, and on the other a vertical one. 1874Green Short Hist. i. §2. 13 The debtor, unable to discharge his debt..took up the labourer's mattock.
attrib. and Comb.1855Tennyson Maud i. xviii. iv, Born To labour and the mattock-harden'd hand. 1832Planting 37 (L.U.K.) Mattock planting is confined chiefly to rocky ground. Ibid. 60 An active workman with a steel mattock-hoe will clean round the plants [etc.].
▪ II. mattock, v.|ˈmætək|
[f. mattock n.]
trans. To turn up with the mattock. Also fig.
1649W. Blithe Eng. Improv. Impr. 140 Prejudice..so deeply rooted, as will aske hot water to Mattock up. 1792A. Young Trav. France 411, I have seen them..mattocking up every corner of a field where the plough could not come. 1840Cottager's Manual 45 (L.U.K.) No plant is so much improved by deep..mattocking between the rows as the potato. 1854Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc. XV. ii. 274 Have all the ant-hills and hassocks mattocked up. |