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maul

 [mawl]   Example Sentences Origin

maul

   [mawl]
noun
1.
a heavy hammer, as for driving stakes or wedges.
2.
Archaic. a heavy club or mace.
verb (used with object)
3.
to handle or use roughly: The book was badly mauled by its borrowers.
4.
to injure by a rough beating, shoving, or the like; bruise: to be mauled by an angry crowd.
5.
to split with a maul and wedge, as a wooden rail.

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Maul is one of our favorite verbs.
So is fletcherise. Does it mean:
to chew (food) slowly and thoroughly.
to introduce subtleties into or argue subtly about.
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Also, mall.

Origin:
1200–50; (noun) Middle English malle < Old French mail mallet, hammer < Latin malleus hammer; (v.) Middle English mallen < Old French maillier, derivative of noun

Related forms
maul·er, noun
un·mauled, adjective

Can be confused: mall, maul, maw.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Example Sentences
  • Beil has been known to use razor-clawed insults to maul government officials who anger him.
  • Ubiquitous coyotes will attack children and maul even pit-bull terriers when hungry enough.
  • They look cute, except for the part where they maul me and put big slobbery pools of drool all over me.
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Collins
World English Dictionary
maul (mɔːl)
 
—vb
1.  to handle clumsily; paw
2.  to batter or lacerate
 
—n
3.  a heavy two-handed hammer suitable for driving piles, wedges, etc
4.  rugby a loose scrum that forms around a player who is holding the ball and on his feet
 
[C13: from Old French mail, from Latin malleus hammer. See mallet]
 
'mauler
 
—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline
Word Origin & History

maul
mid-13c., meallen "strike with a heavy weapon," from M.E. mealle (mid-13c.) "mace, wooden club, heavy hammer," from O.Fr. mail (see mallet). The meaning "damage seriously, shatter, mangle" is first recorded 1690s. Related: Mauled; mauling.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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Easton
Bible Dictionary

Maul definition


an old name for a mallet, the rendering of the Hebrew mephits (Prov. 25:18), properly a war-club.

Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
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