A tool or handle for an axe or hatchet; the shaft or helve of an axe.
From Middle English helve or hylfe, from Old English hielfe, relating to a handle or shaft. The word is related to modern handle and possibly to Old Norse hjalfi. Over time, helver became the term for the wooden handle specifically of an axe.
A helver seems like a forgotten word, but it shows how specific language got when tools were central to survival—you needed different words for different parts of essential equipment!
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