Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A hard, fine-grained stone for honing tools.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A stone for sharpening cutlery or tools by friction. Whetstones are made of various kinds of stone, the finer kinds being, a silicious slate, and when used are moistened with oil or water.
- noun Figuratively, that which sharpens, stimulates, or incites the faculties or appetites.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A piece of stone, natural or artificial, used for whetting, or sharpening, edge tools.
- noun [Obs.] to give a premium for extravagance in falsehood.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A hard stone or piece of synthetically
bonded hard minerals that has been formed with at least one flat surface, used to sharpen orhone anedged tool . - noun computing A
benchmark for evaluating the power of a computer.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a flat stone for sharpening edged tools or knives
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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That was of plain black leather, but it included a pocket that had once held some small tool and recalled the whetstone pocket on the manskin sheath of _Terminus Est_.
The Urth of the New Sun Wolfe, Gene 1987
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Shaftesbury's test (which is a part of the rake's creed, and what I may call the whetstone of infidelity,) endeavoured to turn the sacred subject into ridicule.
Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 3 Samuel Richardson 1725
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Lord Shaftesbury’s test (which is a part of the rake’s creed, and what I may call the whetstone of infidelity,) endeavoured to turn the sacred subject into ridicule.
Clarissa Harlowe 2006
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The teeth of these people also, whatever they may suffer in their colour by chewing betel, are an object of great attention: The ends of them, both in the upper and under jaw, are rubbed with a kind of whetstone, by a very troublesome and painful operation, till they are perfectly even and flat, so that they cannot lose less than half a line in their length.
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 13 Robert Kerr 1784
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He heard the whine of axe-blade on whetstone and the first shiver of fear went through him.
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When done right, comics are a cognitive whetstone, providing two or three or more different but entangled streams of information in a single panel.
i went home with a waitress the way i always do matociquala 2009
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They include a whetstone from Norway, a bronze ringpin from Ireland, his sword with beautifully decorated hilt, a spear and a shield which survive only as metal fittings, and pottery.
Viking chieftain's burial ship excavated in Scotland after 1,000 years 2011
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At the time of her death Wetzsteon pronounced“whetstone” was the poetry editor of The New Republic and a faculty member at William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey.
The Life and Death and Art of Rachel Wetzsteon Con Chapman 2011
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They're not "wet stones" but rather "whetstones" as in "whet: to make keen or more acute;" whet my appetite "; to sharpen by rubbing, as on a whetstone"
Learn To Sharpen Good Knives With Water Stones | Lifehacker Australia 2010
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Eh, I just use the minosharp for my Global knives since no one will sharpen them and I do not trust my hand at a whetstone.
Learn To Sharpen Good Knives With Water Stones | Lifehacker Australia 2010
Gammerstang commented on the word whetstone
(noun) - (1) A notorious liar was formerly said to deserve the whetstone as a premium either for the magnitude or iniquity of the falsehood. The origin of the proverbial phrase is not known.
--William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
(2) It is a custom in the North, when a man tells the greatest lie in the company, to reward him with a whetstone, which is called lying for the whetstone.
--Joseph Budworth's Fortnight's Rambles to the Lakes, 1792
(3) The term whetstone for a liar . . . seems to be very old.
--Frederick Elworthy's Specimens of English Dialects, 1778
(4) Lying with us is so loved and allowed that there are many gamings and prizes . . . to encourage one to outlye another. And what shall he gaine that gets the victorie in lying? He shall have a silver whetstone for his labour.
--Thomas Lupton's Too Good to Be True, 1580
January 14, 2018