Noun

1. A hard stone or piece of synthetically bonded hard minerals that has been formed with at least one flat surface, used to sharpen or hone an edged tool.
2. A benchmark for evaluating the power of a computer.

Quotations

• 1922, Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room, Vintage Classics, paperback edition, page 88-89

  It was as if a stone were ground to dust; as if white sparks flew from a livid whetstone, which was his spine; as if the switchback railway, having swooped to the depths, fell, fell, fell.

Related terms

• grind, grindstone
• hone (noun), hone (verb)
• stone, whet (verb)