mallet

[ mal-it ]

noun

1. a hammerlike tool with a head commonly of wood but occasionally of rawhide, plastic, etc., used for driving any tool with a wooden handle, as a chisel, or for striking a surface.
2. the wooden implement used to strike the balls in croquet.
3. Polo. the long-handled stick, or club, used to drive the ball.

mallet

/ ˈmælɪt /

noun

1. a tool resembling a hammer but having a large head of wood, copper, lead, leather, etc, used for driving chisels, beating sheet metal, etc
2. a long stick with a head like a hammer used to strike the ball in croquet or polo
3. a very large powerful steam locomotive with a conventional boiler but with two separate articulated engine units

Word History and Origins

Origin of mallet¹

1375–1425; late Middle English maillet < Middle French, equivalent to mail maul + -et -et

Word History and Origins

Origin of mallet¹

C15: from Old French maillet wooden hammer, diminutive of mail maul (n)

Example Sentences

"It's so hard to do, number one. Number two, my back and my neck from swinging that hammer around, or mallet, I think it's called, if you're in the know, it's polo language."

From BBC

In his memoir, “Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics,” Biden acknowledged discovering a polo mallet, riding breeches and other markers of a privileged life in his father’s closet.

From Los Angeles Times

However, during the FBI tests in 2022 at the agency’s lab in Quantico, Va., forensic analysts used a rawhide mallet to strike the gun so hard that components of the gun fractured.

From Los Angeles Times

With his other hand, he pulled out the red-hot iron rod and smacked it a few times with a mallet.

From Literature

As three people struck wood with mallets under a viaduct in Queens during the morning rush hour one day in the fall, a man walked up and asked, “What do you call this music?”

From New York Times

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