A gavel is a small ceremonial

Ceremony

A ceremony is an event of ritual significance, performed on a special occasion. The word may be of Etruscan origin.-Ceremonial occasions:A ceremony may mark a rite of passage in a human life, marking the significance of, for example:* birth...

 mallet

Mallet

A mallet is a kind of hammer, usually of rubber,or sometimes wood smaller than a maul or beetle and usually with a relatively large head.-Tools:Tool mallets come in different types, the most common of which are:...

 commonly made of hardwood

Hardwood

Hardwood is wood from angiosperm trees . It may also be used for those trees themselves: these are usually broad-leaved; in temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen.Hardwood contrasts with softwood...

, typically fashioned with a handle and often struck against a sound block to enhance its sounding qualities. It is a symbol of the authority and right to act officially in the capacity of a chair

Chair (official)

The chairman is the highest officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office is typically elected or appointed by the members of the group. The chairman presides over meetings of the assembled group and conducts its business in an...

 or presiding officer. It is used to call for attention or to punctuate rulings and proclamation

Proclamation

A proclamation is an official declaration.-England and Wales:In English law, a proclamation is a formal announcement , made under the great seal, of some matter which the King in Council or Queen in Council desires to make known to his or her subjects: e.g., the declaration of war, or state of...

s. It is customarily struck to indicate the opening (call to order), keep the meeting itself calm and orderly, and the closing (adjournment

Adjournment

An adjournment is a suspension of proceedings to another time or place. To adjourn means to suspend until a later stated time or place.-Law:In law, to adjourn means to suspend proceedings to another time or place, or to end them....

) of proceedings, giving rise to the phrase gavel-to-gavel to describe the entirety of a meeting or session. It is also used by judge

Judge

A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...

s in the court

Court

A court is a form of tribunal, often a governmental institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law...

s of some countries and by auction

Auction

An auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder...

eers to signal a sale.

The gavel is used in courts of law in the United States and, by metonymy

Metonymy

Metonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept...

, is used there to represent the entire judiciary

Judiciary

The judiciary is the system of courts that interprets and applies the law in the name of the state. The judiciary also provides a mechanism for the resolution of disputes...

 system, especially of judge

Judge

A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...

ship; to bring down the gavel means to enforce or compel with the power of a court. It also represents the authority of presiding officers; thus the expression passing the gavel signifies an orderly succession from one chair to another.

The sound of the gavel strike, being abrupt to start and stop, and clearly audible by all present, serves to sharply define an action in time in a manner clearly perceivable by all, and to endow the action with practical as well as symbolic temporal finality (what was not before striking, is after it; or what was before striking, is no more after it).

History

There are references to the word in Medieval England in reference to a tribute or rent payment made with something other than cash. These agreements were set in English land-court with the sound of a "gavel".

Proper use

Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised

Robert's Rules of Order

Robert's Rules of Order is the short title of a book containing rules of order intended to be adopted as a parliamentary authority for use by a deliberative assembly written by Brig. Gen...

provides guidelines on the proper use of the gavel in deliberative assemblies

Deliberative assembly

A deliberative assembly is an organization comprising members who use parliamentary procedure to make decisions. In a speech to the electorate at Bristol in 1774, Edmund Burke described the English Parliament as a "deliberative assembly," and the expression became the basic term for a body of...

. For instance, the chair is never to use the gavel in an attempt to drown out a disorderly member; rather, the chair should give one vigorous tap at a time at intervals. The chair should not lean on the gavel, juggle or toy with it, or use it to challenge or threaten or to emphasize remarks. The prohibited practice of a chair cutting off members' right to debate or introduce secondary motion

Motion (parliamentary procedure)

In parliamentary procedure, a motion is a formal proposal by a member of a deliberative assembly that the assembly take certain action. In a parliament, this is also called a parliamentary motion and includes legislative motions, budgetary motions, supplementary budgetary motions, and petitionary...

s by quickly putting a question to vote before any member can get the floor is referred to as "gaveling through" a measure.

Demeter's Manual

Demeter's Manual of Parliamentary Law and Procedure

thumb|right|125px| Demeter's ManualDemeter's Manual of Parliamentary Law and Procedure, by George Demeter, is a parliamentary authority manual. It is included in the bank of study materials used in preparing for the Certified Parliamentarian designation offered by the American Institute of...

notes that, in addition to an optional light tap after a vote, there are three other uses of a gavel:

1. To attract attention and call a meeting to order. In most organizations, two raps raise and one rap seats the assembly; in others, two raps raise and three raps seat it.
2. To maintain order and restore it when breached in the course of the proceedings. (Rap the gavel once, but vigorously.)
3. To be handed over to successors in office or to officiating officers as ceremonials, etc. (Always extend the holding end.)

United States Congress gavels

The unique gavel

Traditions of the United States Senate

The United States Senate observes a number of traditions, some formal and some informal. Some of the current and former traditions are described below:-Maiden speeches:...

 of the United States Senate

United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

 has an hourglass

Hourglass

An hourglass measures the passage of a few minutes or an hour of time. It has two connected vertical glass bulbs allowing a regulated trickle of material from the top to the bottom. Once the top bulb is empty, it can be inverted to begin timing again. The name hourglass comes from historically...

 shape and no handle. The gavel in current use was presented to the Senate by the Republic of India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 and first used on November 17, 1954. This gavel replaced an ivory

Ivory

Ivory is a term for dentine, which constitutes the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals, when used as a material for art or manufacturing. Ivory has been important since ancient times for making a range of items, from ivory carvings to false teeth, fans, dominoes, joint tubes, piano keys and...

 gavel which had been in use since at least 1789 and had deteriorated over the years. In 1952, silver plates were added to both ends of the old gavel in an attempt to prevent further damage to it. In 1954, it broke when Vice President

Vice President of the United States

The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...

 Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon

Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

 used it during a heated debate on nuclear energy

Nuclear power

Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...

. Unable to obtain a piece of ivory large enough to replace the gavel, the Senate appealed to the Indian embassy

Embassy of India in Washington

The Embassy of India in Washington, D.C. is the embassy of the Republic of India to the United States in Washington, D.C.. The building is located at 2107 Massachusetts Avenue NW, in the Embassy Row neighborhood....

. India presented to the United States the solid ivory replica

Replica

A replica is a copy closely resembling the original concerning its shape and appearance. An inverted replica complements the original by filling its gaps. It can be a copy used for historical purposes, such as being placed in a museum. Sometimes the original never existed. For example, Difference...

 still in use.

In contrast to the Senate, the gavel of the United States House of Representatives

United States House of Representatives

The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...

 is plain and wood

Wood

Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...

en. Used more often and more forcefully in the House; it has been broken and replaced many times.

In both houses, the gavel is generally sounded, that is, struck, once to mark the opening of the session, the adjournment, and to punctuate announcements of decisions by the body (that is, when the presiding officer announces that a resolution or motion is passed, the gavel is generally rapped once to declare the issue finished and to move on). The gavel, particularly in the House, is often tapped repeatedly to call the assembly to order or to restore order when cross-conversation has made it too noisy to proceed.