Other forms: tools
A tool is anything you hold in order to do work. A hammer for hitting, a saw for cutting, a screwdriver for turning.
The word covers whole trades, and a toolbox, a toolkit and a tool shed all belong to it. Software borrowed it completely, so a text editor is a tool and a set of them is a toolchain. There is a figurative sense meaning a means to an end, as in language is a tool for thought, and a nastier one meaning somebody used by another person. The phrase for getting started is downing tools, which actually means stopping.
1nounimplementAn implement held in the hand to carry out a task.
“He put every tool back in its place.”
2nountoolAnything used as a means of achieving something.
“Data has become a political tool.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Proto-Indo-European
*dewh₂- — to tie to, secure
Proto-Germanic
*tōlą — that which is used in preparation, tool
Old Norse
tól
Old English
tōl — tool, implement, instrument
Middle English
tool
English, today
tool
From Middle English tool, tol, from Old English tōl (“tool, implement, instrument”) literally “that with which one prepares something”, perhaps borrowed from Old Norse tól, but at any rate ultimately from Proto-Germanic tōlą (“that which is used in preparation, tool”), from Proto-Indo-European dewh₂- (“to tie to, secure”), equivalent to taw + le agent suffix. Cognate with Scots tuil (“tool, implement, instrument, device”), Icelandic tól (“tool”), Faroese tól (“tool, instrument”). Related to Old English tāwian (“to make, prepare, or cultivate”); see taw, and tow ("fibres used for spinning").
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA