''pestle'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260714000159-00-⌔

pestle - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Noun

pestle (plural pestles)

• A club - shaped, round-headed stick used in a mortar to pound, crush, rub or grind things.
  • ✤ She then sat down by the fire, and carefully separated the stone from the pulp, which she burnt; and her next task was to extract the kernel, which she did by means of a heavy pestle and the hearth. The kernels were next crushed together, and placed to simmer over the furnace.¹
• (archaic) A constable’s or bailiff’s staff; so called from its shape.
  • ✤ […] whether the chopping-knife or their pestles were the better weapons²
• The leg and leg bone of an animal, especially of a pig.
  • ✤ a pestle of pork

Verb

pestle (third-person singular simple present pestles, present participle pestling, simple past and past participle pestled)

• (transitive) To pound, crush, rub or grind, as in a mortar with a pestle.
  • ✤ ‘Next time, boy, that you use that mortar for garlic, I will personally knock out your brain, place it in the said mortar, pestle it to a fine paste and give it to Dick Purser for feeding the dogs.’³

Etymology

From Middle English pestel, pestell, from Old French pestel, from Latin pistillum, from pīnsō (“pound, beat”).⁴ Doublet of pistil and pistillum.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈpɛsəl/
• Rhymes: -ɛsəl
• Audio (Canada): 🔊

Printed 2026-07-14.

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Footnotes

1. 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “The Laboratory”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 327: ↩

2. 1611, George Chapman, May-Day: ↩

3. 2020, Hilary Mantel, The Mirror and the Light, Fourth Estate, page 47: ↩

4. Douglas Harper (2001–2026), “pestle”, in Online Etymology Dictionary. ↩