maul

Middle English malle (“mace, maul”), from Anglo-Norman mail, from Old French mail, from Latin malleus (“hammer”)

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• Rhymes: -ɔːl
• Homophone: mall
• Homophone: moll (some accents)

maul (plural mauls)

1. A heavy long-handled hammer, used for splitting logs by driving a wedge into them, or in combat.
2. (rugby) A situation where the player carrying the ball, who must be on his feet, is held by one or more opponents, and one or more of the ball carrier's team mates bind onto the ball carrier.

• (weapon): club, mace

• (long-handled hammer): post maul, spike maul, splitting maul
• (rugby): rolling maul

• ruck
• scrum

maul (third-person singular simple present mauls, present participle mauling, simple past and past participle mauled)

1. To handle someone or something in a rough way.
2. To savage; to cause serious physical wounds (usually used of an animal).

   The bear mauled him in a terrible way.

3. (figuratively) To criticise harshly.

• mall
• mallet

• maul at OneLook Dictionary Search
• maul in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

• Lamu, alum, luma, malu, mula

maul n

1. (anatomy) mouth

• Umberto Patuzzi, ed., (2013) Ünsarne Börtar, Luserna: Comitato unitario delle linguistiche storiche germaniche in Italia / Einheitskomitee der historischen deutschen Sprachinseln in Italien