A thin, geminate root sitting near the word ot, a sign or signal. Its clearest living form is the signalman, the person whose whole job is to give signs. Alongside it the family keeps a plain hand tool, the spade, the thing that leaves its mark in the ground. Small root, few words, but the thread is a sign made and read. Both words are verified against pealim, niqqud included.
No verb is lexicalized for this geminate root in the family data, it survives as nouns. The related signalling verb le'atet exists in the wider language, but here we keep strictly to the verified words.
Same root letters, different noun moulds (mishkalim). The mould tells you the function: who does it, the act of doing it, or the thing produced.
Strip the prefixes, suffixes and vowels. Three consonants remain, and the meaning lives there.