digging stick

American  

noun

1. a pointed or spatulate wooden stick, sometimes having a stone weight or crossbar attached and used in primitive societies for loosening the ground to extract buried wild plant foods and for tilling the soil.

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Etymology

Origin of digging stick

First recorded in 1860–65

Example Sentences

The shape suggests that it may have been part of a digging stick; however, the specimen is very highly polished on all of its preserved surfaces.

From A Burial Cave in Baja California The Palmer Collection, 1887 by Massey, William C.

Her only other implement is her digging stick, the primitive pick-plow excavator.

From Oriental Women by Pollard, Edward Bagby

They hunted with sticks; they threw a stick like your mother's digging stick; and they struck with a stick like your father's hunting club.

From The Cave Boy of the Age of Stone by McIntyre, Margaret A.

Burr took her digging stick from beside her door and hacked a point on it with her new ax.

From The Cave Boy of the Age of Stone by McIntyre, Margaret A.

Gill, from the Hervey Islands, calls it a sharpened digging stick, used also as a weapon.

From The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai by Beckwith, Martha Warren