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Glite Dictionary
handspike

handspike

1 9.9
A metal bar used as a lever to move or lift heavy things
  • noun
  • Specialized
: palanca
  • Like yonder windlass... and fate is the handspike.

Examples

  • The workers used a handspike to lift the heavy crate onto the truck.

  • Artillerymen leaped to a Napoleon's handspike, began swinging the twelve-pounder toward the stand of trees.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • While we were thus busily employed, other mischievous fellows were busy kicking the bottom of the handspikes on one side, which brought the jaws plop together and laid us sprawling at the bottom.

    Academic text (1998)

  • Lovett's writing characteristically gains colloquial vitality when he gets to naming the bad things, as when the kicking out of the handspikes "brought the jaws plop together.

    Academic text (1998)

  • He grabbed the handspike to help move the large boulder out of the way.

  • To adjust the position of the heavy beam, they employed a handspike as a lever.

Synonyms

hand tool
vshandspike
6 1.8

A thing you hold and use with your hands, not powered by a machine, like a hammer or screwdriver

is a specific long metal bar used as a lever to lift heavy things

Surface Forms

handspike singular
handspikes plural

Morphology

handspike = hand + spike (semi-transparent) = hand + spike

Formally a compound of 'hand' + 'spike' whose components are clear, but the specific tool meaning 'lever bar' is a specialized extension not fully predictable from the parts.

Etymology

The word handspike joins the parts hand and spike, and it was used for a long bar you hold with your 'hand' to push or pull. So a handspike is a metal bar or pipe used as a lever to move or lift heavy things, like sailors grabbing bars to turn a big wheel.