A crowbar, a wrecking bar, pry bar, or prybar, or sometimes (in British usage) a prise bar or prisebar, and more informally a jimmy, jimmy bar, jemmy or gooseneck is a tool consisting of a metal bar with a single curved end and flattened points, often with a small fissure on one or both ends for removing nails. In the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia, "crowbar" may occasionally be used loosely for this tool, but is more commonly used to mean a larger straight tool (see spud bar). The term jemmy or jimmy (named for a fictional burglar) most often refers to the tool when used for burglary.
It is used as a lever either to force apart two objects or to remove nails. Crowbars are commonly used to open nailed wooden crates. Common uses for larger crowbars are: removing nails, prying apart boards, and generally breaking things. Crowbars can be used as any of the three lever classes but the curved end is usually used as a first-class lever, and the flat end as a second class lever.
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Normally made of medium-carbon steel they can alternatively be made from titanium, which has the advantages of being lighter and nonmagnetic.
The least expensive, most common crowbars are forged from hexagonal, or sometimes cylindrical stock. More expensive designs may be forged with an I-shaped cross-section shaft.
The accepted etymology[1][2] identifies the first component of the word crowbar with the bird-name "crow", perhaps due to the crowbar’s resemblance to the feet or beak of a crow. The first attestation of the word is circa 1400. They also were called simply crows, or iron crows; William Shakespeare used the term iron crow in many places[3], including his play Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Scene 2:
In the 1719 novel by Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, the protagonist uses crowbars as pickaxes but refers to these tools as iron crows: