helve
Pronunciation Noun

helve (plural helves)

  1. The handle or haft of a tool or weapon.
    • 1917, Robert Frost, The Ax-helve:
      It was the bad ax-helve someone had sold me— / “Made on machine,” he said, plowing the grain […]
    • 1974, Guy Davenport, Tatlin!:
      The eyelet in the rose pilleum of his glans welled a clear bead that silled under the corona, wound the veinclomb helve, and ran a snailtrack down the thrum and ridge of the underduct.
    • 1982, Lawrence Durrell, Constance, Faber & Faber 2004 (Avignon Quintet), p. 847:
      Happily they were only sketchily armed, the group-leaders carried pistols and pick-helves.
  2. A forge hammer lifted by a cam acting on the helve between the fulcrum and the head.
Verb

helve (helves, present participle helving; past and past participle helved)

  1. (transitive) To furnish (an axe, etc.) with a helve.



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