Definition of "mattocks" [mattocks]

• Plural form of mattock. (noun)

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• "The crossing of mattocks, that is to say, the actual meeting of the workmen underground, was often the abrupt signal for contention; the driving of narrow headings was a means by which one coal-owner might gain possession of coal which of right belonged to another; and a pit, though sunk at a cost of several thousand pounds, had no secured possession of coal beyond 12 yards round it, that is, a tract of coal 24 yards in diameter."
• "It still contained a considerable number of tools, such as mattocks, shovels, and pick-axes."
• "So, in the second chapter of Isaiah, the scholars assembled in the Puritan John Rainolds's rooms in Corpus Christi, Oxford, faced the following in the Bishops' Bible: "They shall break their swords also into mattocks, and their spears to make scythes: and one people shall not lift up a weapon against another, neither shall they learn to fight from henceforth"."