[f. prec. sb.]
1. trans. To work or shape with a tool; spec. to smooth the surface of a building stone with the chisels called ‘tools’: cf. quot. 1842 in TOOL sb. 1 d (b).
1815. [see TOOLING 2].
1828. Craven Gloss., Tool, to make a level surface on a stone.
1842. Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl., V. 211/1. The whole exterior … will be faced with stone from the Summit delphs, which is to be neatly hammer-dressed, except the ashlar dressings, which are to be neatly tooled.
1873. Sir T. Seaton, Fret-Cutting (1875), 56. The stems and branches look very well when simply rounded and tooled with the V-tool, or tooling-gouge, which is the smallest sized round gouge.
1876. Preece & Sivewright, Telegraphy, 238. Chatterton’s compound should be warmed, and a small quantity put on the copper and joint, and properly tooled over, so as to cover the joint equally. Before applying the tooling-iron it should be well wiped.
1895. Daily Chron., 15 Jan., 6/7. Aluminium … is ductile, but difficult to tool.
b. Bookbinding. To impress an ornamental design upon the binding of (a book) with a special tool (see prec. 1 d (a)). Most usually in pa. pple.; see also TOOLED.
1836. J. R. Smith’s Catal. Bks., Feb., 14/1. A remarkable fine copy, russia extra, tooled on sides, gilt.
1881. A. Lang, Library, 65. Leather tooled with geometrical patterns.
1885. C. G. W. Lock, Workshop Receipts, Ser. IV. 246/1. Another method is to tool the edge before burnishing.
c. intr. To work with a tool or tools; spec. in Bookbinding: see prec. sense and TOOLING 2 b.
1890. Daily News, 2 July, 5/1. ‘The Tasmanians’ … the very last people who ‘tooled’ with rudely chipped flints.
1892. Sat. Rev., 16 Jan., 64/2. They are a ferocious people … and ‘tool’ with spears almost as broad in the head as shovels.
2. slang. a. trans. To drive (a team of horses, a vehicle, or a person in a vehicle); of a horse, to draw (a person) in a vehicle.
1812. Sporting Mag., Oct., 10/2. She intends to tool the Liverpool expedition to-morrow night.
1840. J. T. Hewlett, P. Priggins, xv. He would only drive to Benson, and ‘tool’ the down mail back again.
1849. Lytton, Caxtons, XIII. iv. He could tool a coach.
1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., I. xi. She was on most days solemnly tooled through the park … in a great tall custard-coloured phaeton.
1881. Jessopp, Arcady (1887), i. 13. The high-stepping mare that tools him along through the village street.
1882. H. C. Merivale, Faucit of B., II. II. ii. 158. I tooled the little mare over from Luscombe Abbey—the six miles in the half-hour.
b. intr. To drive, to travel in a horse-drawn vehicle; also said of the vehicle, or team; also, by extension, of any vehicle: to travel, go along.
1839. J. Frazer, in Haileybury Observer, I. 53. The road was so good … as to enable us to ‘tool along’ in a well-hung britschka, at the rate of ten miles an hour.
1849. Thackeray, Pendennis, iii. I thought I’d just tool over, and go to the play.
1877. Mar. M. Grant, Sun-maid, xi. The Marquis’s frisky chestnuts are tooling rapidly through the town.
1893. W. A. Shee, My Contemp., iii. 77. I went down [to Ascot] on General Fraser’s drag with seven or eight other fellows, and and we ‘tooled’ down in very good style.
