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auger

[aw-ger]
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noun
  1. Carpentry.
    1. a bit, as for a brace.
    2. a boring tool, similar to but larger than a gimlet, consisting of a bit rotated by a transverse handle.
  2. earth auger.
  3. a device consisting of a shaft with a broad helical flange rotating within a cylindrical casing to force bulk materials from one end to the other.
  4. snake(def 3a).
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Origin of auger

before 900; Middle English nauger (a nauger misdivided as an auger; cf. adder1, apron), Old English nafogār nave-piercer (cognate with Old Norse nafarr, Old Saxon nabugēr, Middle Dutch navegeer, Old High German nabagēr), equivalent to nafa nave + gār spear; cf. gore3, garlic
Can be confusedauger augur
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for auger

Historical Examples

  • Jack twitched the auger from one of the seamen and flung it into the lagoon.

    Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas

    Lloyd Osbourne

  • This point fits into a hole pecked with a point or bored with an auger into the door-sill.

    Boy Scouts Handbook

    Boy Scouts of America

  • Then Baugi took the auger again and he bored deeper and deeper into the rock.

  • These round holes might be fashioned with an auger, so regular are they.

  • They next tapped the maple-trees on the south side, with an auger of an inch and a half.

    Taking Tales

    W.H.G. Kingston

British Dictionary definitions for auger

auger

noun
  1. a hand tool with a bit shaped like a corkscrew, for boring holes in wood
  2. a larger tool of the same kind for boring holes in the ground
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Word Origin

C15 an augur, resulting from mistaken division of earlier a nauger, from Old English nafugār nave (of a wheel) spear (that is, tool for boring hubs of wheels), from nafu nave ² + gār spear; see gore ²
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for auger

n.

c.1500, faulty separation of Middle English a nauger, from Old English nafogar "nave drill," from Proto-Germanic *nabogaizaz (cf. Old Norse nafarr, Old Saxon nabuger, Old High German nabuger), a compound whose first element is related to nave (n.2) and whose second is identical to Old English gar "a spear, borer" (see gar). For similar misdivisions, see adder. The same change took place in Dutch (avegaar).

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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper