auger

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English nauger, also navegar,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English nafogār, also nabogār,^[5][6][7][8] inherited from Proto-Germanic *nabōgaizaz (“hub-borer”).^[9][5][10] Old English compounded nafu (“nave of a wheel”), the source of nave, and gār (“spear, borer”), the source of gar and the first part of garlic;^{[5][7][4][11]} the OED thinks the compound first named a pointed tool for drilling the hole in the nave of a wheel.^[6] It is cognate with Old Saxon nabugēr, Old High German nabagēr, Middle Dutch navegher and Old Norse nafarr,^[6][5][3] and an early loan of it survives as Finnish napakaira.^[6] In Middle English the initial n was taken as the end of the indefinite article, so that “a nauger” became “an auger”;^{[10][3][12][13]} the Middle English Dictionary quotes the form augour from 1371,^[2] Hoad finds forms without n in the 15th century,^[7] and Etymonline dates the new form to about 1500.^[10] The same misdivision gave Dutch avegaar and egger,^[10][6][5] and English adder and apron lost their n in the same way.^[5][13][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A carpenter's tool for boring holes in wood: in Old English, first in the Épinal Glossary.^[6] Barnhart dates the Old English word to about 700,^[5] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged to before the 12th century.^[3] In early Middle English it glosses Latin and French words for a borer, as navegar in a Worcester copy of Ælfric's glossary (about 1225) and nauger in the glosses to Bibbesworth (before 1325).^[2]

Semantic evolution

Merriam-Webster's Word Histories points out that nafu is closely related to Old English nafela, the navel, although the tool was never used to make one.^[4] From 1532 the name was given to larger tools for boring into the ground.^[6] Since 1777 it has also named slender, spiral-shelled sea snails, probably after New Latin terebra (“borer”), used as a species name.^[6] The 19th century added the helical screw that moves grain or feed in farm machinery (1880) or forces material through a die (1886), and a coiled wire for clearing drains, at first in the United States (1897).^[6] The verb, to bore with an auger, is recorded from 1851, and to move material with an auger from 1912.^[6] Johnson (1755) derived the word from a Dutch egger.^[14] In slang the auger has been a word for the penis since at least 1694.^[15]

Timeline

• Old English – nafogār, a carpenter's boring tool.^[6][5]
• 1371 – the form augour, without the n.^[2]
• 1532 – a large tool for boring into the ground.^[6]
• 1777 – a sea snail with a slender spiral shell.^[6]
• 1851 – verb, to bore with an auger.^[6]
• 1880 – a helical screw that moves grain or other loose material.^[6]
• 1897 – a flexible coiled wire for clearing drains and pipes.^[6]
• 1912 – verb, to move material with an auger.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A carpenter's tool for boring holes in wood, with a shank ending in a spiral bit and a crosswise handle for turning it.^[3][16][6]
2. A larger tool of the same kind for boring into the ground or ice, or for taking soil samples.^[16][6][3]
3. A rotating helical screw in a machine, used to move loose material such as grain.^[6][3]
4. A flexible coiled wire turned to clear blocked drains and pipes.^[6]
5. A sea snail with a slender, pointed spiral shell; an auger shell.^[6]

Verb

1. To bore a hole with an auger.^[6]
2. To move material with an auger: The corn was augered into the bin.^[3][6]

Related words

• nave
• navel
• gar
• gore
• garlic

Usage notes

A separate auger, an eel-spear, is recorded from before 1425 and is a variant of algere;^[6] Wright found it in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire dialect for a three-pronged spear for eels.^[17] The Auger effect of physics is named after the French physicist Pierre Victor Auger.^[6][8]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
10. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
13. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
16. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
17. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)