pruning hook

American  

noun

1. an implement with a hooked blade, used for pruning vines, branches, etc.

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pruning hook British  

noun

1. a tool with a curved steel blade terminating in a hook, used for pruning

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Etymology

Origin of pruning hook

First recorded in 1605–15

Example Sentences

The woman holds a laurel wreath, plow stock and pruning hook, and a biblical inscription at her feet says: “They have beat their swords into plough-shares and their spears into pruning hooks.”

From Seattle Times • Dec. 19, 2023

Last week the President: > Used a pruning hook on departmental Budget estimates, slashing away steadily.

From Time Magazine Archive

Yet the pruning hook, which Sir George associated with the historic harvest, and with Ridley, an early Australian colonist, was hardly of the Scriptural pattern.

From The Romance of a Pro-Consul Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir George Grey, K.C.B. by Milne, James

At the pruning hook, in getting in that harvest, they were of vast assistance, and not often have soldiers been more nobly occupied.'

From The Romance of a Pro-Consul Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir George Grey, K.C.B. by Milne, James

No hirelings they, who fought for mere glory, or lust of gold, but husbands, fathers of families--men who had left the ploughshare and pruning hook to fight for hearth and altar.

From The Rival Heirs; being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune by Crake, A. D. (Augustine David)