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

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

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.

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.

Chew-chew struck one of the hogs with her digging stick.

From The Later Cave-Men by Brown, Howard V.

She found a root and pushed it out of the ground with her digging stick and threw it into her basket.

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