mallet

noun

1. a hammerlike tool with a head commonly of wood but occasionally of rawhide, plastic, etc., used for driving any tool with a wooden handle, as a chisel, or for striking a surface.
2. the wooden implement used to strike the balls in croquet.
3. Polo. the long-handled stick, or club, used to drive the ball.

noun

1. a tool resembling a hammer but having a large head of wood, copper, lead, leather, etc, used for driving chisels, beating sheet metal, etc
2. a long stick with a head like a hammer used to strike the ball in croquet or polo
3. mainly US a very large powerful steam locomotive with a conventional boiler but with two separate articulated engine units

n.late 14c., from Old French maillet “mallet, small wooden hammer, door-knocker,” diminutive of mail, from Latin malleus “a hammer,” from PIE *mal-ni-, from root *mele-, *mel- “to crush, grind,” with derivatives referring to ground material and tools for grinding (cf. Hittite mallanzi “they grind;” Armenian malem “I crush, bruise;” Greek malakos “soft,” mylos “millstone;” Latin molere “to grind,” mola “millstone, mill,” milium “millet;” Old English melu “meal, flour;” Albanian miel “meal, flour;” Old Church Slavonic meljo, Lithuanian malu “to grind;” Old Church Slavonic mlatu, Russian molotu “hammer”).