Word.ws English Dictionary

bradawl

/ˈbɹædɔːl/

bradawl noun: an awl with a blade similar to a small, straight screwdriver; used for making holes, especially in wood to take screws.

bradawl: an awl with a blade similar to a small, straight screwdriver; used for making holes, especially in...
Image: Double Happiness, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

bradawl (plural bradawls)

  1. An awl with a blade similar to a small, straight screwdriver; used for making holes, especially in wood to take screws.
    • ‘I wish I wos behind him vith a bradawl,’ muttered the long one.1836, Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers 36
    • For the first adjustment [to a door that keeps swinging open], you might need to remove the screws from the frame, move the hinge slightly, and then make new screw holes with a bradawl and reinsert the screws.2016 January 30, Jeff Howell, “Swinging doors: it's not open and shut”, in The Daily Telegraph (Property), page 15

Forms of bradawl

pluralbradawls

Origin of bradawl

From brad + awl.

Questions about bradawl

What does bradawl mean?
Bradawl means an awl with a blade similar to a small, straight screwdriver; used for making holes, especially in wood to take screws.
What part of speech is bradawl?
Bradawl is a noun.
How do you pronounce bradawl?
Bradawl is pronounced /ˈbɹædɔːl/.
What is the plural of bradawl?
The plural of bradawl is bradawls.

Words near bradawl in the dictionary

  1. Brad Pittesque
  2. Brad Shitt
  3. bradaczekite
  4. bradavidin
  5. bradavidins
  6. bradawl
  7. bradawls
  8. Bradbeer
  9. Bradberry
  10. Bradbourne
  11. Bradbrook

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bradawl (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “bradawl.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bradawl. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.