handheld drill
- noun
- /ˈhændˌhɛld drɪl/
- He used a handheld drill to create a hole in the wooden board for the new shelf.
Examples
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With a handheld drill, you can easily make precise holes in various materials for your projects.
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Then I have to try to drill another hole using my little handheld drill set that I've got, but it's always the case.
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The contractor brought his handheld drill to the job site to quickly install the fixtures.
Synonyms
A tool that uses electricity or a battery to make holes in hard things like wood and metal
A hand-held tool that uses electricity to turn a small metal piece to make holes
A small tool you turn by hand to make holes in wood or other materials
A small hand tool for making tiny holes in material like jewelry
A small hand tool with a spiral rod for making tiny precise holes
How Portable
Surface Forms
Morphology
The noun phrase meaning is directly and transparently built from 'handheld' (held in the hand, small/portable) + 'drill' (a tool for making holes); a B1 learner who knows both words can infer a portable drill intended to be held. The adjective+noun composition follows a common, cross-linguistic pattern and requires no idiomatic or metaphorical shift, so the MWE is immediately comprehensible from its parts.
Etymology
The compound noun handheld drill comes from the simple image of a small drill you hold in your hand to 'make holes' in wood or metal. That picture explains why the name means a small, 'portable' tool you can carry and use by hand instead of a large, fixed machine.