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whetstone

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whetstone¹

  • /ˈʍɛtˌstoʊn/ US
  • [ˈʍɛʔˌstoʊn] US
  • /ˈwɛtˌstoʊn/ US
  • [ˈwɛʔˌstoʊn] US
  • /wɛtstəʊn/ England
  • /ˈʍɛtˌston/ Scotland

Where it comes from

From Middle English whetston, wheston, from Old English hwetstān, from Proto-West Germanic *hwattjastain (“whetstone”). Equivalent to whet (“to sharpen”) + stone.

noun whetstones

  1. A sharpening stone; a hard stone or piece of synthetically bonded hard minerals that has been formed with at least one flat surface, used to sharpen or hone an edged tool. […]for alwaies the dulneſſe of the foole, is the whetstone of the wits.

    Similar: honestone

  2. figuratively A stimulant.
  3. Alternative letter-case form of Whetstone (“benchmark”).

verb whetstones · whetstoning · whetstoned

  1. transitive To sharpen with a whetstone. Near-synonym: hone (verb)

    Similar: stone, hone

Whetstone²

  • /ˈwɛtstəʊn/ UK

Where it comes from

The benchmark is named after the Whetstone compiler built at an English Electric Company division in Whetstone, Leicestershire.

proper noun

  1. A suburb and ward in the borough of Barnet, Greater London, England (OS grid ref TQ2693).
  2. A large village and civil parish in Blaby district, Leicestershire, England (OS grid ref SP5597).
  3. A census-designated place in Cochise County, Arizona, United States.
  4. An unincorporated community in Clay County, West Virginia, United States.
  5. A surname.
  6. A synthetic benchmark for evaluating the power and performance of a computer, primarily based on floating-point arithmetic. Developed in the early 1970s by Harold Curnow and Brian Wichmann, Whetstones was originally released in Algol and Fortran versions but was later translated into several other languages.

noun Whetstones

  1. A single instruction of the Whetstone benchmark, often expressed as a value per second. The Prodigy 4 does 500,000 Whetstones.

Translations

Every language

noun stone used to hone tools

Españolpiedra de afilar, piedra de amolar, piedra para afilar, piedra amoladera
한국어숫돌 sutdol
日本語砥石 toishi, 磨石 togiishi
中文磨刀石 módāoshí, 磨石 móshí
Kiswahilisuguo
Portuguêsmó
Françaispierre à aiguiser, aiguisoir
DeutschSchleifstein, Wetzstein, Abziehstein
Italianocote
Ελληνικάακόνι akóni
Românăgresie, cute
Русскийосело́к oselók, брус brus, точи́льный ка́мень točílʹnyj kámenʹ, точи́ло točílo
Tiếng Việtđá mài
العربيةمِسَنّ misann, مِجْلَخَة mijlaḵa, مِشْحَذ mišḥaḏ
עבריתאבן השאה éven hasaá, אבן משחזת éven mashkhézet

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MLA

"whetstone." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/whetstone. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

whetstone. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/whetstone

Chicago

"whetstone." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/whetstone.

BibTeX
@misc{whetstone_2026,
  title = {whetstone},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/whetstone},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}