Celt (tool)

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In archaeology, a celt /ˈsɛlt/ is a long, thin, prehistoric, stone or bronze tool similar to an adze, hoe, or axe.

A shoe-last celt was a polished stone tool used during the early European Neolithic for felling trees and woodworking.

The term "celt" seems to have come about from a copyist's error in many medieval manuscript copies of Job 19:24 in the Latin Vulgate Bible, which became enshrined in the authoritative Sixto-Clementine printed edition of 1592. Where all earlier versions^[1] (the Codex Amiatinus, for example) have vel certe (the Latin for 'but surely'), the Sixto-Clementine has vel celte. The Hebrew has לעד (lā‘aḏ) at this point, which means 'forever'. The editors of the Oxford English Dictionary "[incline] to the belief that celtis was a phantom word",^[2] simply a misspelling of certe. However, some scholars over the years have treated celtis as a real Latin word.^[2][3]

From the context of Job 19:24 ("Oh, that my words were inscribed with an iron tool on lead, or engraved in rock forever!"), the Latin word celte was assumed to be some kind of ancient chisel. Eighteenth-century antiquarians, such as Lorenz Beger [de; fr], adopted the word for the stone and bronze tools they were finding at prehistoric sites; the OED suggests that a "fancied etymological connexion"^[3] with the prehistoric Celts assisted its passage into common use.

• Hapax legomenon – Word that only appears once in a given text or record
• Palstave – European Bronze Age axe
• Rattleback – Semi-ellipsoidal spinning top

• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Celt (tool)" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.