haft

plural hafts

1. The handle of a tool or weapon.

   See this brandiſh'd Dagger: / […] / I'll bury to the haft, in her fair breaſt, / This Inſtrument of my Revenge.

   1679, [John] Dryden, [Nathaniel] Lee, Oedipus: A Tragedy. […], London: […] R. Bentley and M. Magnes […], →OCLC, Act V, page 74

   Synonyms: helve

present singular third person hafts · participle present hafting · participle past hafted · past hafted

1. transitiveTo fit a handle to (a tool or weapon).

   Instead, they made finely crafted bone points to haft onto their spears, reserving the use of flint mostly for blades and scrapers.

   2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History, page 218

2. transitiveTo grip by the handle.

plural hafts

1. Northern EnglandScotlandalternativeAlternative spelling of heft (“piece of pastureland which farm animals (chiefly cattle or sheep) have become accustomed to; flock or group of farm animals (chiefly cattle or sheep) which have become accustomed to a particular piece of pastureland”).

present singular third person hafts · participle present hafting · participle past hafted · past hafted

1. Northern EnglandScotlandalternativeambitransitiveAlternative spelling of heft (“(transitive) to accustom (a flock or group of farm animals, chiefly cattle or sheep) to a piece of pastureland; to establish or settle (someone) in an occupation or place of residence; to establish or plant (something) firmly in a place; (intransitive, reflexive) of a thing: to establish or settle itself in a place”)

   […] I hae heard him say, that the root of the matter was mair deeply hafted in that wild muirland parish than in the Canogate of Edinburgh.

   […] I had heard him say, that the root of the matter was more deeply hafted in that wild moorland parish than in the Canongate of Edinburgh.

   1818 July 25, Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter II, in Tales of My Landlord, Second Series, […] (The Heart of Mid-Lothian), volume IV, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Company, →OCLC, page 28