![]() ![]() Instead it offers this brief definition:īroomstick n (1663) : the long thin handle of a broom But the Eleventh Collegiate doesn't endorse that meaning of broomstick. Undeniably, people sometimes talk about a witch riding on a "broomstick" even though what they have in mind is a witch riding on a complete broom-stick and twigs or fibers. We might as well ask, "Why do we have ax handles, shovel handles, and rake handles but not broom handles?" (Of course, broomsticks are sometimes called broom handles, so that question is problematic, too.) But we do have comparable terms for the sticks associated with rakes ( rake handle or rake pole), shovels ( shovel handle or shovel shaft), and axes ( ax handle or ax haft), for example, so the implication of the original question that broomstick is unique among hand tools does not survive serious scrutiny. ![]() In the old days, I imagine, broomsticks tended to last longer than broom twigs, and so had a household identity of their own. In the San Francisco Bay Area, where I live, scotch broom grows wild in the hills and parklands round about, having been introduced (and having escaped cultivation) many decades ago-and I can tell you that a bunch of its strong, flexible twigs bound to a study wooden stick would make a formidable tool for sweeping. showy yellow flower esp : SCOTCH BROOM 2 : a bundle of firm stiff twigs or fibers bound together on a long handle esp. genera Cytisus and Genisia) with long slender branches, small leaves, and usu. Merriam-Webster's Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary (2003) treats the definition involving the plant as older than the definition involving the implement:īroom n (bef 12 c) 1 : any of various leguminous shrubs (esp. Evidently, the English word broom originally referred to a type of plant that people used to supply the working end of a sweeping device.
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