1. A steel instrument, having cutting ridges or teeth, made by indentation with a chisel, used for abrading or smoothing other substances, as metals, wood, etc.
Note: A file differs from a rasp in having the furrows made by straight cuts of a chisel, either single or crossed, while the rasp has coarse, single teeth, raised by the pyramidal end of a triangular punch.
2. Anything employed to smooth, polish, or rasp, literally or figuratively. Mock the nice touches of the critic's file. Akenside.
3. A shrewd or artful person. [Slang] Fielding.
Will is an old file spite of his smooth face. Thackeray.
Bastard file, Cross file, etc. See under Bastard, Cross, etc.
— Cross-cut file, a file having two sets of teeth crossing
obliquely.
— File blank, a steel blank shaped and ground ready for cutting to
form a file.
— File cutter, a maker of files.
— Second-cut file, a file having teeth of a grade next finer than
bastard.
— Single-cut file, a file having only one set of parallel teeth; a
float.
— Smooth file, a file having teeth so fine as to make an almost
smooth surface.
FILE
File, v. t.
1. To rub, smooth, or cut away, with a file; to sharpen with a file; as, to file a saw or a tooth.
2. To smooth or polish as with a file. Shak. File your tongue to a little more courtesy.Sir W.Scott.
FILE File, v. t. Etym: [OE. fulen, filen, foulen, AS. f, fr. fFoul, and cf. Defile, v.t.]
Defn: To make f [Obs.]
All his hairy breast with blood was filed.Spenser.
For Banquo's issue have I filed mind.Shak.
FILE CLOSER
File" clos`er. (Mil.)