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whetstone

noun, verb — 5 senses

whetstone

nounalso spelled Whetstone

US /ˈʍɛtˌstoʊn/ · UK /wɛtstəʊn/

Etymology From Middle English whestone, whetston, whetesston, from Old English hwetstān, from Proto-West Germanic *hwattjastain (“whetstone”). Equivalent to whet (“to sharpen”) + stone.

1

A sharpening stone; a hard stone or piece of synthetically bonded hard minerals that has been formed with at least one flat surface, used to sharpen or hone an edged tool.

  • […]for alwaies the dulneſſe of the foole, is the whetstone of the wits.c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], page 186, column 2, line 192:
  • It was as if a stone were ground to dust; as if white sparks flew from a livid whetstone, which was his spine; as if the switchback railway, having swooped to the depths, fell, fell, fell.1922 October 26, Virginia Woolf, Jacob’s Room, Richmond, London: […] Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, →OCLC; republished London: The Hogarth Press, 1960, →OCLC:
2

Figuratively A stimulant.

3

Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences Alternative letter-case form of Whetstone (“benchmark”).

whetstone

verb

Etymology From Middle English whestone, whetston, whetesston, from Old English hwetstān, from Proto-West Germanic *hwattjastain (“whetstone”). Equivalent to whet (“to sharpen”) + stone.

1

To sharpen with a whetstone.

  • Near-synonym: hone (verb)

Whetstone

noun

UK /ˈwɛtstəʊn/

Etymology The benchmark is named after the Whetstone compiler built at an English Electric Company division in Whetstone, Leicestershire.

1

Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences A single instruction of the Whetstone benchmark, often expressed as a value per second.

  • The Prodigy 4 does 500,000 Whetstones.1994, Binod C. Agrawal, Larry R. Symes, Future of Computerisation in Institutions of Higher Learning, Concept Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 92:
Derived terms
kWIPS, MWIPS

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — authors: page histories for whetstone and Whetstone.