A power tool is a tool that’s actuated by an additional power source and electric power tools mechanism other than the solely manual labor used with hand tools. The most common types of power equipment use electrical motors. Internal combustion engines and compressed air flow are also generally used. Other power resources include steam engines, direct burning up of fuels and propellants, such as in powder-actuated equipment, or even natural power resources such as wind or moving water. Tools directly driven by pet power are not generally considered power equipment.

Power tools are used in industry, in building, in the backyard, for housework jobs such as for example cooking, cleaning, and around the house for purposes of traveling (fasteners), drilling, slicing, shaping, sanding, grinding, routing, polishing, painting, heating system and more.

Power tools are categorized as either stationary or portable, where portable means hand-held. Portable power tools have apparent advantages in mobility. Stationary power equipment, however, often have advantages in rate and accuracy. An average table saw, for example, not merely cuts faster than a regular hand saw, but the cuts are smoother, straighter, and more square than what is normally achievable with a hand-held power saw. Some stationary power tools can produce objects that cannot be manufactured in any other way. Lathes, for example, produce truly round objects.

Stationary power tools for metalworking are usually called machine tools. The term machine tool is not usually put on stationary power tools for woodworking, although such use is from time to time heard, and in some cases, such as drill presses and bench grinders, precisely the same tool is used for both woodworking and metalworking.