whetstone
UK /ˈwɛtstəʊn/ · US /ˈʍɛtˌstoʊn/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms whetstones whetstoning whetstoned
- noun 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.
- noun (figurative) A stimulant.
- verb (transitive) To sharpen with a whetstone.
- proper noun A suburb and ward in the borough of Barnet, Greater London, England (OS grid ref TQ2693).
- proper noun A large village and civil parish in Blaby district, Leicestershire, England (OS grid ref SP5597).
- proper noun A census-designated place in Cochise County, Arizona, United States.
- proper noun An unincorporated community in Clay County, West Virginia, United States.
- proper noun A surname.
- proper noun (computing) A synthetic benchmark for evaluating the power and performance of a computer, primarily based on floating-point arithmetic.
- noun (computing) A single instruction of the Whetstone benchmark, often expressed as a value per second.
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English whestone, whetston, whetesston, from Old English hwetstān, from Proto-West Germanic *hwattjastain (“whetstone”). Equivalent to whet (“to sharpen”) + stone.
The benchmark is named after the Whetstone compiler built at an English Electric Company division in Whetstone, Leicestershire.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A piece of stone, natural or artificial, used for whetting, or sharpening, edge tools.
Etymology [AS. hwetstan.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “whetstone”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details