chisel
Americannoun
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chisels
plural
-
a wedgelike tool with a cutting edge at the end of the blade, often made of steel, used for cutting or shaping wood, stone, etc.
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Astronomy. Chisel, the constellation Caelum.
verb (used with object)
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chisels,
present (3rd person singular)
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chiseled,
past participle, past
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chiselled,
past participle, past (especially British)
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chiseling,
present participle
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chiselling
present participle (especially British)
-
to cut, shape, or fashion by or as if by carving with a chisel.
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to cheat or swindle (someone).
He chiseled me out of fifty dollars.
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to get (something) by cheating or trickery.
He chiseled fifty dollars out of me.
noun
verb
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to carve (wood, stone, metal, etc) or form (an engraving, statue, etc) with or as with a chisel
-
slang to cheat or obtain by cheating
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
chiselsimple
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chiselssimple
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have chiseledperfect
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have chiselledperfect
-
has chiseledperfect
-
has chiselledperfect
-
am chiselingprogressive
-
am chisellingprogressive
-
are chiselingprogressive
-
are chisellingprogressive
-
is chiselingprogressive
-
is chisellingprogressive
-
have been chiselingperfect progressive
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have been chisellingperfect progressive
-
has been chiselingperfect progressive
-
has been chisellingperfect progressive
Past
-
chiseledsimple
-
chiselledsimple
-
had chiseledperfect
-
had chiselledperfect
-
was chiselingprogressive
-
was chisellingprogressive
-
were chiselingprogressive
-
were chisellingprogressive
-
had been chiselingperfect progressive
-
had been chisellingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of chisel
First recorded in 1325–75; Middle English, from Anglo-French, variant of Old French cisel, from unattested Vulgar Latin cīsellus, diminutive of unattested cīsus, for Latin caesus, past participle of caedere “to cut,” with -ī- generalized from prefixed derivatives; cf. excide
Explanation
When you carve a statue from a block of marble, you use a tool called a chisel to cut out the shape. Chisel is the name of the tool and also the name of the action. A chisel has a flat, sharp end. To carve using a chisel, you hit the back of it with a hammer or another blunt instrument. Chisel can also mean "to cheat." If someone chisels you out of your allowance, they shaved it away from you bit by bit.
Vocabulary lists containing chisel
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“I had to put the table upside down and use a chisel and grinder to remove as much material as I could. It took us three tries to get the table right.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 8, 2026
KYIV, Ukraine—It was late January, and an elite Ukrainian team grabbed their tools for a special operation critical to their country’s resistance against Russia: an underwater drone, a hammer and a chisel.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 15, 2026
“CMS is continuing to chisel away at higher spending associated with coding intensity,” says Tricia Neuman, executive director for the Program on Medicare Policy at KFF, a health policy nonprofit.
From Barron's ● Jan. 27, 2026
Finally, he was able to chisel out the embedded trunk handle to open it, clambering in and driving his Model Y Long Range S.U.V. five miles to the closet supercharging station.
From New York Times ● Jan. 17, 2024
He moved the trundle cart close to the workbench, where he found a chisel.
From "The Door in the Wall" by Marguerite de Angeli
One promising option is tungsten carbide, an Earth-abundant material already widely used in industrial machinery, cutting tools, and chisels.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 24, 2026
Every day in prison "chisels away at their mental and physical health," Mr Bennett said, adding: "They are not spies for the British state."
From BBC ● Jan. 3, 2026
The marks of chisels and other hand tools are prominent across all their surfaces, which appear sleek from a distance, making for an exciting juxtaposition between material and method.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 17, 2025
He saw others who wanted to take a piece of it, who’d come to the metaphorical mountain with chisels in hand.
From Slate ● Nov. 28, 2024
A yellow-shafted flicker chisels for an insect in a tree, and a kingfisher alights on an aspen bough.
From "On the Far Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George
He continues by "mewing," a TikTok trend where people suck in their cheeks and point a finger at their jawline to emphasize their chiseled features.
From Barron's ● Aug. 22, 2026
“I felt so much pressure every time I go on Instagram and I see these chiseled, really fit, good-looking guys,” says Robinson, a 31-year-old Manhattan resident who designs hospitals.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 4, 2026
Man, if my chest hair wasn’t going visibly gray and I was instead a lanky, chiseled Zoomer with a hit LP I might feel the same way about top buttons.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 1, 2026
Larry’s the pragmatic choice, but Luke is the romantic one, down to his handsome, chiseled features right out of a supermarket paperback.
From Salon ● Nov. 27, 2025
“I got eaten, like the Stone Boy. But my friends chiseled me out,” he said.
From "Hello, Universe" by Erin Entrada Kelly
Styles has a lot in common with the King of Rock and Roll: from his chiselled good looks to the particular way he wiggles his hips.
From BBC ● Jun. 13, 2026
India's 'Prince' may have chiselled, film star-like good looks, but he will be prepared to fight if the crown slips.
From BBC ● Jun. 16, 2025
The Frankenstein patchwork of his face has echoes of Alasdair Gray's chiselled artwork and he uses the same gentle accent and singsong voice as Gray himself.
From BBC ● Jan. 13, 2024
The "chiselled, intense, and hard-hitting" choreography is illuminated by Bangalter's "nervous" but "lyrical" score, wrote Amaury Jacquet in Publikart.
From BBC ● Apr. 3, 2023
His face was chiselled and bronze, his eyes black as basalt, his curly dark hair glistening with oil.
From "Blood of Olympus" by Rick Riordan
“Looksmaxxing” has men injecting themselves with unregulated peptides and hammering their jawlines, chiseling their own bone structure like Michelangelo with a front-facing camera.
From Salon ● May 27, 2026
Zhong likens this to a sculptor chiseling away at marble until the final form emerges.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 13, 2025
By reducing the cost of chiseling, Springut reasons, architects can once again embrace the decorative flourishes of carved stone.
From Slate ● Aug. 21, 2023
She notes that chiseling and sanding away at stone is also a much slower process than working with other media.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 30, 2022
Disheartened, I made my way out into the workshop and was greeted by the sounds of a hundred hands busily chiseling wood, chipping stone, and hammering metal.
From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss
"I had run out of energy and I was deep in my pain cave. No matter how hard I was chiselling at it, it wasn't translating to power."
From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2023
However, he said a local architect had "spotted its significance and got permission to save the artwork, spending a day chiselling it off the wall".
From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2022
We entered frosty courts by a secret hatchway and waved wooden racquets in majestic arcs, a ceremony akin to polar explorers chiselling out ice caves.
From The New Yorker ● Jan. 18, 2016
In Defoe’s tale, Robinson Crusoe spends five months making a canoe for himself, felling a cedar-tree, paring away its branches and chiselling out its innards.
From Economist ● May 24, 2012
The light, strained through the ground-glass shade, made her skin seem fair and fresh as that of a little child, while it did not blur the clear chiselling of her features.
From Jessamine A Novel by Marion Harland
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