handstone

plural handstones

1. A mano.

   Cornsilk slammed her handstone down into the meal.

   1997, Kathleen O'Neal Gear, W. Michael Gear, People of the Silence: A Novel of North America's Forgotten Past, →ISBN

   3 more examples

   With each stroke she pressed the handstone down over the corn.

   2006, W. Michael Gear, Kathleen O'Neal Gear, People of the Moon: A Novel of North America's Forgotten Past, →ISBN

   To my surprise it turned out to be a broken half of a well-crafted Indian mano, or handstone.

   2007, Richard Jamison, Linda Jamison, Primitive Skills and Crafts, →ISBN

   The simplest method is to place a handful of grain on a smooth, flat rock on the ground, and then lean forward and use your body weight to crush and grind it beneath a handstone.

   2014, Lewis Dartnell, The Knowledge: How to Rebuild our World from Scratch, →ISBN, page 84

2. Any of various other handheld stone tools.

   Each time the axe is used, hone or touch up the edge with a handstone.

   1948 October, “Sharpening Axes”, in Popular Science, volume 153, number 4, page 237

   3 more examples

   I believe if we refer to these poems that the accounts before us of a stone implement called the champion handstone, Leacan Laoich Milidh and Lia Lamha Laich, will closely tally with this object.

   1891, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy - Volume 1, page 218

   In the record of the Ford of Comar, near Fore, in the county of Westmeath, which is supposed to have occrred in the century before the Christian era, Lohar's people all came with a champion's handstone stowed away in the hollow of their shields.

   1897, Sir Bertram Coghill Alan Windle, Life in Early Britain

   The ease with which the handstone moves across the hide depends on the amount of connective tissue and moisture on the hide.

   2010, Jeffrey R. Ferguson, Designing Experimental Research in Archaeology, →ISBN