different between pestle vs pistillation

English

Etymology

From Middle English pestel, pestell, from Old French pestel, from Latin pistillum, from p?ns? (“pound, beat”). Doublet of pistil.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?p?s?l/
• Rhymes: -?s?l

Noun

pestle (plural pestles)

1. A club-shaped, round-headed stick used in a mortar to pound, crush, rub or grind things.
2. (archaic) A constable's or bailiff's staff; so called from its shape.
   • 1611, George Chapman, May-Day

     […] whether the chopping-knife or their pestles were the better weapons

3. The leg and leg bone of an animal, especially of a pig.

Coordinate terms

• muddler

Translations

Verb

pestle (third-person singular simple present pestles, present participle pestling, simple past and past participle pestled)

1. (transitive) To pound, crush, rub or grind, as in a mortar with a pestle.

Related terms

• pesto
• pistil

References

Anagrams

• steple

English

Etymology

From Latin pistillum +? -ation.

Noun

pistillation (uncountable)

1. (obsolete) The action of pounding with a pestle.
   • 1646, Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, Book II, ch. 5

     [They] are so far from breaking hammers, that they submit unto pistillation, and resist not an ordinary pestle.

References

Thomas Sheridan (1780) A General Dictionary of the English Language, Dodsley, page PT717: “PISTILLATION, pis-til-la'-fhun. s. The act of pounding in a mortar.”