Awl, auger, gimlet, wimble ice pick - all hand tools for making small holes, particularly pilot
holes either for sewing leather, or as aid to driving a nail or screw accurately.
The gimlet and the augur (which may be much larger than the others) usually have
tips threaded or with pairs of chiisel bits to facilitate penetration Back in the twenties,
one PC unmentionable group so commonly used ice picks as weapons that a slang name
for them was "African rapier". I haven't heard that for fifty years.

gingival - Pertaining to oral tissues surrounding base of teeth.

Glass"wort` (?), n. (Bot.) A seashore plant of the Spinach family (Salicornia herbacea), with succulent jointed stems; also, a
prickly plant of the same family (Salsola Kali), both formerly burned for the sake of the ashes, which yield soda for making glass
and soap.

Flower bud glaucescence




Glaucous (white with wax): the buds are
prominently covered with a surface white wax (e.g.
E. caesia). This condition must be assessed with
care. Because the wax is superficial, it may rub off
easily. On some parts of the tree the buds may be
green, on others they may be waxy. Obviously, if
most buds show the wax, the plant is considered to
have glaucous buds.

glaucous
adj.
5L glaucus < Gr glaukos: see GLAUCO36
1 bluish-green or yellowish-green
2 Bot. covered with a pale greenish bloom that can be rubbed off, as grapes, plums, cabbage leaves, etc.

glaucoma
n.
5L < Gr glaukbma < glaukos (see prec.) + 3OMA6 any of a group of related eye disorders characterized by increased pressure within the eye which impairs the vision and may slowly cause eye damage and total loss of vision
glau[co4ma[tous 73kb4m! t!s, 3k9m4!38
adj.

Glaucoma is an insidious very serious threat to vision. The test for increase intraocular pressure
used to be disagreeable, and required anaesthesia of cornea. Last one I had was just a puff of
air with special gadget that gave a direct reading, not disagreeable though a bit startling.
Should be done perhaps yearly on all middle aged patients. Such a simple way to detect serious threat.

gloaming - a word in a song we sang in third grade, but nobody ever told us what it meant.
gloaming
n.
5ME (Scot) glomyng < OE glomung < glom, twilight, akin to glowan, to GLOW: adopted in literature < Scot dial.6 evening dusk; twilight

In reply to:

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Should be done perhaps yearly on all middle aged patients.

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Yes indeed. A friend of mine was diagnosed with this when she went for a routine eye-test. She has to use eye-drops every day, but it's a small price to pay for keeping her sight.

Bingley

I share your interest in words having to do with basic tools. I recall your having written about part of the scythe being called the 'thole' or 'tholepin'--can't recall which.

I wish there were a site that had dozens upon dozens of basic tools illustrated along with their respective parts...

These words feel so right and direct: awl, scythe, sickle, adze, pick, axe....

These words feel so right and direct: awl, scythe, sickle, adze, pick, axe....

bipennis...…

There's that bipennis tool thang again making another appearance on AWAD...pennis envy strikes again

Dear WW: thole pins are pairs of short rods set in gunwale of f skiff, between which
the shaft of the oar sits to act as fulcrum when handle of oar is pulled.
The scythe word I mentioned is "snath" - the long handle curved to make it easy to
keep blade horizontal close to ground for efficient cutting. I learned the word in a newspaper
article about Sam Snead, the famous golfer. "Snead" also means snath, but looks more like
a Germanic word for "cut" (schneiden)

Yeah, I'm familiar with the nautical thole pins, but I think a scythe might have a thole, too...

Lemme go check onelook...

Edit: Actually, now that I think about it, 'thole pin' is kinda like saying 'pin pin'--but anyway, look down the definition of 'thole' to where pin is used as a definition--I expect that the scythe probably has a pin on it that was referred to it as the 'thole'--but I'll keep on onelooking...

Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English tholle, from Old English thol; akin to Old
Norse thollr fir tree, peg, Greek tylos knob, callus
Date: before 12th century
1 : either of a pair of pins set in the gunwale of a boat to hold an oar in
place
2 : PEG, PIN