tooling

American  

[too-ling] / ˈtu lɪŋ /

noun

1. work done with a tool or tools; tooled ornamentation, as on wood, stone, or leather.

2. Machinery.

   1. a number of tools, as in a particular factory.

   2. the planning and arrangement of tools for a particular manufacturing process.

---

tooling British  

/ ˈtuːlɪŋ /

noun

1. any decorative work done with a tool, esp a design stamped onto a book cover, piece of leatherwork, etc

2. the selection, provision, and setting up of tools, esp for a machining operation

---

Etymology

Origin of tooling

First recorded in 1665–75; tool + -ing ¹

Example Sentences

In February, global consultancy Accenture reportedly told staff that promotions to top roles would require "regular adoption of AI tooling" and it would be tracking their usage of the AI platform it has developed.

From BBC • Jun. 1, 2026

Additionally, Shi sees agentic AI EDA tools easing the labor bottleneck for customer-owned tooling, or the process of a customer, rather than the chip supplier or manufacturer, owning the chip-manufacturing tools and equipment.

From MarketWatch • Apr. 20, 2026

“The company sits at multiple control points across the enterprise estate—cloud infrastructure, productivity software, developer tooling and security — which should allow it to shape enterprise AI adoption rather than respond to it,” Jader wrote.

From Barron's • Mar. 23, 2026

Investors have been worried about customer-owned tooling, where AI hyperscalers design their own chips in-house, reducing their need for Broadcom chips.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 6, 2026

The lights of the cars tooling up the ramp blinded us as we shuffled backwards through the snow that had started falling, like, two minutes after we’d left Delaney’s in our lightweight concert garb.

From "Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet" by Joanne Proulx

Related Words

• color
• design
• finery
• ornament
• plaque
• ribbon
• trinket
• wreath