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whetstone.

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.

9 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈʍɛtˌstoʊn/US[ˈʍɛʔˌstoʊn]US/ˈwɛtˌstoʊn/US[ˈwɛʔˌstoʊn]US
  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.

  2. A stimulant.

    figuratively
  3. Alternative letter-case form of Whetstone (“benchmark”).

    alt-of
Where this word comes from

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

verb/ˈʍɛtˌstoʊn/US[ˈʍɛʔˌstoʊn]US/ˈwɛtˌstoʊn/US[ˈwɛʔˌstoʊn]US
  1. To sharpen with a whetstone.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

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

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.