Meaning & use
toolmaking
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Meanings
noununcountabletechnical
The skilled trade of designing and producing tools, dies and molds used to manufacture other things.
Grammar: No plural: a career in toolmaking.
Patterns
- a career in toolmaking
- toolmaking skills
He trained in toolmaking before he became a factory manager.
Precision toolmaking is needed to build car parts accurately.
The college offers an apprenticeship in toolmaking.
noununcountablespecialist
The activity of shaping objects such as stones or sticks into tools, studied as a sign of intelligence in early humans and some animals.
Grammar: Used about prehistoric people or animals: early toolmaking.
Patterns
- evidence of toolmaking
- toolmaking by animals
Scientists found evidence of toolmaking in a two-million-year-old site.
Crows are famous for their toolmaking with twigs.
Early toolmaking changed how humans hunted.
Common combinations
- early toolmaking
- Early toolmaking began with simple flakes of stone.
- precision toolmaking
- Precision toolmaking requires steady hands.
- evidence of toolmaking
- They found evidence of toolmaking in the cave.
- a toolmaking apprenticeship
- She started a toolmaking apprenticeship at eighteen.
Synonyms and how they differ
- tool production
- It is a more general phrase and lacks the idea of skilled craftsmanship.
- craftsmanship
- It praises skill in making anything, not only tools.
- engineering
- Engineering is much wider and covers design of machines, structures and systems.
Word family
Commonly confused: toolmaking or tool use?
toolmaking vs tool use
Tool use means only using an object for a task, whereas toolmaking means shaping it first.
Practice
Which would be an example of toolmaking by an animal?
Choose one answer.
Shaping a wire into a hook is making a tool. The other actions are natural behavior and do not involve shaping an object.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “toolmaking”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.