Word Confusion: Tool vs Tule vs Tulle

Plural for the noun: tools
Gerund: tooling

Third person present verb: tools
Past tense or past participle: tooled
Present participle: tooling

Plural: tules

Plural: tulle

• Any instrument of manual operation
• A thing used in an occupation or pursuit
• A person used or exploited by another
• [Computing] A piece of software that carries out a particular function, typically creating or modifying another program

The cutting or machining part of a lathe, planer, drill, or similar machine

• The machine itself

A distinct design in the ornamentation of a leather book cover

• A small stamp or roller used to make an ornamented design

[Vulgar slang] A man’s penis

• Stupid, irritating, or contemptible man

Anything used as a means of accomplishing a task or purpose

A person manipulated by another for the latter’s own ends

• Cat’s-paw

[Firearms, Gunnery, Ordnance, and Artillery; British slang] A pistol or gun

[Underworld slang] A pickpocket

A necessary medium for or adjunct to one’s profession

Verb, intransitive:
Equip or be equipped with implements for industrial production

To work with an implement

[Chiefly North American; informal; with adverbial of direction] Drive or ride in a casual or leisurely manner

[British; informal; tool up or be tooled up] Be or become armed, especially for criminal activity

Verb, transitive:
[Usually be tooled] Impress a design on leather, especially a leather book cover

To work or shape with an implement

To work decoratively with a hand implement

[Slang] To drive a vehicle

To equip with implements or machinery

Dress (stone) with a chisel

Computers are an essential tool in my life.

The ability to write clearly is a tool of the trade.

The beautiful Estella is Miss Havisham’s tool.

Developers will be offered co-marketing money, free software, and developer tools.

There are a variety of techniques used in tooling, including blind and gold.

Performed by hand, book covers were tooled using a variety of tools, such as pallets, fillets, gouges, and rolls.

Most tooling tools were of brass with a die-sunk design in the metal face or circumference.

The drawing was removed, and a variety of modeling tools were used to tool the foil in relief.

“Hey, baby, wanna see my tool,” he leered.

That guy is such a tool.

The companies are working with open-source compiler developers to create software development tools for programmers.

Education is a tool for success.

Numbers are the tools of the mathematician’s trade.

Verb, intransitive:
They were tooling up for production.

Have you seen Jim tooling around town in a pink Rolls-Royce?

They were tooled up with baseball bats.

I saw my doctor on Wednesday and got tooled up with some antibiotics, which finally seem to be doing the trick.

I adore my Olfa cutter for how easy it is to tool around the outside of a clothing pattern.

Verb, transitive:
In tooling gold leaf, use a gold knife to lift it and cut it to fit.

It’s really a beautiful little piece of work, bound in leather that’s been tooled with a lovely design of roses and vines.

He tooled the car along the treacherous path.

There were eight volumes bound in green leather and tooled in gold.

The factory must be tooled to produce the models.

Long gone are the tooled finishes from hand-held chisels that could render differences in texture across the face of a stone block or from one stone to the next.

Egrets, terns, mallards, pelicans, eagles, tundra swans, and herons browsed amid thickets of 10-foot-tall bulrushes known as tule.

In my youth, this was a murky place filled with stands of tule reeds, bubbling pools of stagnant water, and little streams that ran between islands of bushes and reeds.

The tule reeds might be ripped out, damaging the slough’s filtration system.

By late summer, it has dried almost entirely — nothing but weary, bent tules and polygonal cracks in sunbaked mud.

Digging deeper, he would have found long-dormant seeds of marsh sedges and the sleeping rhizomes of tules and cattails.

“The ruffed grouse and the tule hens are plentiful, and of course nothing can be more delicious” (Roe).

“On this coast we again meet with wooden canoes, although the balsa, or tule raft, is also in use” (Bancroft).

“The tule flat between the water front and Sutter’s Fort had become a bustling city” (Houghton).

“I built a little hut of tule, and he lay on the ground till he died” (Jackson).

If in doubt about the design’s stability, sandwich a layer of sheer fabric, such as organdy, organza, or tulle, with the water-soluble stabilizer prior to stitching.

Use nude-color tulle or silk organza for interfacing.

She fingered fine muslins and intricate laces, heavy crimson silks, and tulle.

Satin, organza, chiffon, georgette, tulle, lace, brocades, and crepe are all classic fabrics for bridesmaid dresses.

Lime-colored tulle is a great neutral to use in protecting torn sections of antique quilts.