plough staffplow staffn.
/ˈplaʊ stɑːf/, U.S. /ˈplaʊ ˌstæf/, Scottish English /ˈplʌʊ ˌstaf/ Now chiefly Scottish and English regional (northern).
A staff, ending in a small spade or shovel, used to clear earth, roots, weeds, etc., from the coulter and mouldboard of a plough.
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the world > food and drink > farming > tools and implements > ploughing equipment > [noun] > plough-staff
acre-staffc1300
plough staffc1325
plough-batc1400
plough-potec1400
pattle1404
plough pattle1404
paddle1407
paddle-staff1583
pad-staff1650
sull-paddle1669
spade-staff1706
plough-spade1712
plough cleaner1850
wad-staff1856
wad-stick1889
c1325 (c1300) Chron. Robert of Gloucester (Calig.) 2198 Ȝe beþ men bet iteiȝt to ssofle & to spade, To cartstaf & to ploustaf.
a1400 Gloss. W. de Bibbesworth (Corpus Cambr.) (1929) 922 (MED) Ploustaf [v.rr. sulstaf, a kirstafe; glossing AFr. moundilloun (a1325 Cambr.)].
?c1475 Catholicon Anglicum (BL Add. 15562) f. 97v A Plugh staffe, scudium.
1510 J. Stanbridge Vocabula (?1560) sig. Div Rula, a plough staffe.
1573 T. Tusser Fiue Hundreth Points Good Husbandry (new ed.) f. 15 A plow betle, ploughstaff, to furder the plough, great clod to a sunder, that breaketh so rough.
1618 G. Chapman tr. Hesiod Georgicks ii. 23 When first thou enterst foot to plow thy land, And on thy plow-staffes top hast laid thy hand.
1639 tr. J. A. Comenius Porta Linguarum Reserata (new ed.) xxxii. §391 As he layeth it up into rigs, with the one hand hee holdeth the plough-handle.., with the other the plough-staffe.
1667 O. Heywood Autobiogr., Diaries, Anecd. & Event Bks. (1883) III. 100 He took up the plow-staff and knockt him down.
1740 W. Somervile Hobbinol ii. 53 High o'er his Head His pond'rous Plough-Staff in both Hands he rais'd.
1791 J. Learmont Poems Pastoral 214 The pleugh-staff or whittle wield Mair bang than ever.
1844 H. Stephens Bk. of Farm I. 425 Fig. 89 represents the plough-staff, another and a necessary article of the movable furniture of the plough.
1892 R. Murray Hawick Songs 17 Hei tuik his muckle plow-staff than, And cam' and swabbled mei.
1978 A. Fenton Northern Isles xxxviii. 311 An essential piece of equipment was the pattle or plough staff. It served to clean surplus earth off the plough, and also acted as a second stilt.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2006; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.c1325