tooled

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of tool.

   The bookbinder tooled the cover with gold lettering.

   They tooled the metal sheet into shape over several hours.

   Note

   One regular -ed form serves every sense of the verb, from shaping leather by hand to fitting out a workshop with equipment. Most of those senses take an object and turn passive easily (the cover was hand-tooled), and there the verb shades into the bookbinder's adjective. Only the sense of working very hard stands without an object. A dated British slang sense, driving a coach, also takes this form.

2. 2
   adjective

   Worked or shaped using a tool.

   The carpenter showed off a beautifully tooled oak panel.

   Each tooled edge revealed the precision of the workshop.

   Similarworked, carved, machined, shaped

3. 3
   adjective

   Decorated with an ornamental design pressed or stamped into the surface.

   The library displayed a richly tooled binding from the seventeenth century.

   Her saddle featured an intricately tooled floral pattern across the seat.

   Similarembossed

   Note

   A bookbinder's term, most at home on leather: the design is pressed into the surface with hand tools or stamps, often heated and sometimes finished in gold. Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep (1939) sets out "tooled leather bindings" on polished tables, which is the classic collocation. Saddles and belts borrow it too. It narrows the broader "worked" sense from shaping to decoration.

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