haft
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Pronunciation
- (General American) IPA(key): /hæft/
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /hɑːft/
Audio (Northern England): (file) - Rhymes: -ɑːft, -æft
Etymology 1
From Middle English haft, from Old English hæft, from Proto-West Germanic *haftī, from Proto-Germanic *haftiją.
Noun
haft (plural hafts)
- The handle of a tool or weapon.
- 1679, [John] Dryden, [Nathaniel] Lee, Oedipus: A Tragedy. […], London: […] R. Bentley and M. Magnes […], →OCLC, Act V, page 74:
- See this brandiſh'd Dagger: / […] / I'll bury to the haft, in her fair breaſt, / This Inſtrument of my Revenge.
Synonyms
Hyponyms
Translations
handle
|
Verb
haft (third-person singular simple present hafts, present participle hafting, simple past and past participle hafted)
- (transitive) To fit a handle to (a tool or weapon).
- 2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History, page 218:
- Instead, they made finely crafted bone points to haft onto their spears, reserving the use of flint mostly for blades and scrapers.
- (transitive) To grip by the handle.
Derived terms
Translations
Etymology 2
Noun
haft (plural hafts)
- (Northern England, Scotland) Alternative spelling of heft (“piece of pastureland which farm animals (chiefly cattle or sheep) have become accustomed to; flock or group of farm animals (chiefly cattle or sheep) which have become accustomed to a particular piece of pastureland”)
Verb
haft (third-person singular simple present hafts, present participle hafting, simple past and past participle hafted)
- (transitive, intransitive, Northern England, Scotland) Alternative spelling of heft (“(transitive) to accustom (a flock or group of farm animals, chiefly cattle or sheep) to a piece of pastureland; to establish or settle (someone) in an occupation or place of residence; to establish or plant (something) firmly in a place; (intransitive, reflexive) of a thing: to establish or settle itself in a place”)
- 1818 July 25, Jedadiah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter II, in Tales of My Landlord, Second Series, […] (The Heart of Mid-Lothian), volume IV, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Company, →OCLC, page 28:
- […] I hae heard him say, that the root of the matter was mair deeply hafted in that wild muirland parish than in the Canogate of Edinburgh.
- […] I had heard him say, that the root of the matter was more deeply hafted in that wild moorland parish than in the Canongate of Edinburgh.
References
- Compare “haft, n.2”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, July 2023; “haft, v.3”, in OED Online , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, July 2023.
Anagrams
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