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The Learning Kingdom's Cool Word of the Day for May 18, 1999
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sledge [n. SLEJ]
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There are two kinds of sledge. The first is a vehicle with runners
for use in the snow, and the second is a heavy hammer, usually called
a sledgehammer. The two meanings are unrelated.
In Middle Dutch, the snow vehicle was originally a sleedse. This
word, which changed into Dutch slee (which gave us English sleigh),
came from the Prehistoric Germanic root slid-, which was also the
source of English slide and related words. From the same root came
other snow vehicle names, like Middle Low German sledde, which gave us
English sled.
"Sledgehammer" is actually redundant. In Old English such a large
hammer was simply called a slecg, and was originally a war weapon.
The word goes back to prehistoric Germanic slakh- (to hit), which also
led to the English words slay and slaughter.
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