auger

The tool called an auger has nothing to do with people’s navels, but the words auger and navel are related. This tool was first used to bore a hole for the axle in the nave, or hub, of a wheel. Such a nave was called nafu in Old English. Nafu is related to the word nafela, which became our word navel. The Old English ancestor of auger was nafogar, which was made up of nafu and gar, meaning “spear.” By Middle English nafogar had lost a syllable and shrunk to nauger. Since a nauger sounds like an auger, people began to write an auger, and our modern spelling of the word was born.