mallet
Plural: mallets
Noun
- A type of hammer, often with a large head.
- a sports implement with a long handle and a head like a hammer; used in sports (polo or croquet) to hit a ball
- a light drumstick with a rounded head that is used to strike such percussion instruments as chimes, kettledrums, marimbas, glockenspiels, etc.
- a tool resembling a hammer but with a large head (usually wooden); used to drive wedges or ram down paving stones or for crushing or beating or flattening or smoothing
- A type of hammer with a larger-than-usual head made of wood, rubber or similar non-iron material, used by woodworkers for driving a tool, such as a chisel. A kind of maul.
- A weapon resembling the tool, but typically much larger.
- A small hammer-like tool used for playing certain musical instruments.
- A light beetle with a long handle used in playing croquet.
- The stick used to strike the ball in the sport of polo.
Verb
- To beat or strike with, or as if with, a mallet.
Examples
- Carpenters use mallets for assembling.
- He needed a strategic mallet to smash through his opponent’s defenses on the board.
- We used a mallet to drive the tent pegs into the ground.
Origin / Etymology
From Middle English malet, maylet, from Old French mallet, maillet (“a wooden hammer, mallet”), diminutive of mal, mail (“a hammer”), from Latin malleus (“a hammer, mall, mallet”).
Scrabble Score: 8
mallet: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordmallet: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
mallet: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary
Words With Friends Score: 11
mallet: valid Words With Friends Word