digging stick

noun

1. a pointed or spatulate wooden stick, sometimes having a stone weight or crossbar attached and used in primitive societies for loosening the ground to extract buried wild plant foods and for tilling the soil.

Word History and Origins

Origin of digging stick¹

First recorded in 1860–65

Example Sentences

Lawrence Barham, an archaeologist at the University of Liverpool, and his colleague Geoff Duller, a geochronologist at Aberystwyth University, had just descended a small cliff to a patch of beach beside the Kalambo River when they spotted the end of a carved digging stick protruding from the sandy riverbank.

From Science Magazine

They posited that tools used by Indigenous peoples, like the digging stick, were rudimentary compared to the more advanced plow cultivation used by European farmers.

From Salon

This rounded knob is the handle of a Neanderthal digging stick made with the aid of fire.

From Nature

In other cultures, 3- to 5-year-olds successfully use a hoe, fishing gear, blowpipe, bow and arrow, digging stick and mortar and pestle.

From Wall Street Journal

Schindler took out his wooden digging stick — modeled after primitive tools — and went after some wild garlic in a weedy tree box.

From Washington Post