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

So she took her digging stick and dug the teepsinna; but when she pulled it out of the earth, the foundation of the Star Country broke and she fell through with her baby.

From Myths and Legends of the Great Plains by Judson, Katharine Berry

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

From Oriental Women by Pollard, Edward Bagby

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.

He got his digging stick and proceeded to make a hole in the ground.

From The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1883-84, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1887, pages 379-468 by Matthews, Washington

She stood with her legs wide apart, waving her wanna, or long digging stick in the air, and rocking her body to and fro, whilst her kangaroo-skin cloak floated behind her in the wind.

From Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2 by Grey, George