Category:Axe

Ax, Axe,, n. Etym: [OE. ax, axe, AS. eax, æx, acas; akin to D. akse, OS. accus, OHG. acchus, G. axt, Icel. öx, öxi, Sw. yxe, Dan. ökse, Goth. aqizi, Gr. , L. ascia; not akin to E. acute.]

Defn: A tool or instrument of steel, or of iron with a steel edge or blade, for felling trees, chopping and splitting wood, hewing timber, etc. It is wielded by a wooden helve or handle, so fixed in a socket or eye as to be in the same plane with the blade. The broadaxe, or carpenter's ax, is an ax for hewing timber, made heavier than the chopping ax, and with a broader and thinner blade and a shorter handle.

Note: The ancient battle-ax had sometimes a double edge.

Note: The word is used adjectively or in combination; as, axhead or ax head; ax helve; ax handle; ax shaft; ax-shaped; axlike.

Note: This word was originally spelt with e, axe; and so also was nearly every corresponding word of one syllable: as, flaxe, taxe, waxe, sixe, mixe, pixe, oxe, fluxe, etc. This superfluous e is not dropped; so that, in more than a hundred words ending in x, no one thinks of retaining the e except in axe. Analogy requires its exclusion here.

Note: "The spelling ax is better on every ground, of etymology, phonology, and analogy, than axe, which has of late become prevalent." New English Dict. (Murray).

Ax, v. t. & i. Etym: [OE. axien and asken. See Ask.]

Defn: To ask; to inquire or inquire of.

Note: This word is from Saxon, and is as old as the English language. Formerly it was in good use, but now is regarded as a vulgarism. It is still dialectic in England, and is sometimes heard among the uneducated in the United States. "And Pilate axide him, Art thou king of Jewis" "Or if he axea fish." Wyclif. 'bdThe king axed after your Grace's welfare." Pegge.

In other languages, the word for "axe" is:
Chamorro: gachai ---

---excerpt from the Illustrated Bible Dictionary.

Axe - Used in the Authorized Version of Deuteronomy 19:5; Deuteronomy 20:19; 1 Kings 6:7, as the translation of a Hebrew word which means "chopping." It was used for felling trees (Isaiah 10:34) and hewing timber for building. It is the rendering of a different word in Judges 9:48, 1 Samuel 13:20 - 13:21, Psalm 74:5, which refers to its sharpness. In 2 Kings 6:5 it is the translation of a word used with reference to its being made of iron. In Isaiah 44:12 the Revised Version renders by "axe" the Hebrew maatsad, which means a "hewing" instrument. In the Authorized Version it is rendered "tongs." It is also used in Jeremiah 10:3, and rendered "axe." The "battle-axe" (army of Medes and Persians) mentioned in Jeremiah 51:20 was probably, as noted in the margin of the Revised Version, a "maul" or heavy mace. In Psalm 74:6 the word so rendered means "feller." (See the figurative expression in Matthew 3:10; Luke 3:9.)