axe
/æks/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.79 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A tool for felling trees or chopping wood etc. consisting of a heavy head flattened to a blade on one side, and a handle attached to it.
noun
An ancient weapon consisting of a head that has one or two blades and a long handle.
noun
A gigging musician's particular instrument, especially a guitar in rock music or a saxophone in jazz.
Slang
verb
To lay off, terminate or drastically reduce, especially in a rough or ruthless manner; to cancel.
Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "His girlfriend/boss/schoolmaster gave him the axe."
- "the Beeching Axe"
- "The tractor plant is slated for the axe."
- "I had a job in the great North Woods Workin' as a cook for a spell But I never did like it all that much And one day the axe just fell"
- "But P'u-yi was nothing if not soft when it came to family, and he arranged for the young man to live with his uncle Beitzu P'u-hsiu in P'u-yi's old house in T'ien-ching. So Yü-t'ai was well clear of Ch'ang-ch'un when the axe fell in 1945."
- "Back in 1963, how could Beeching advocate closure of the electrified Liverpool-Southport commuter route, just because its books didn't balance? The busy North London line between Richmond and Broad Street was also for the axe, as was Leeds to Bradford and Ilkley."
Etymology
From Middle English ax, axe, ex, from Old English æx (“axe”), from Proto-West Germanic *akusi (“axe”), from Proto-Germanic *akwisī (“axe”), probably from a Proto-Indo-European *h₂egʷsih₂ (“axe”), from *h₂eḱ- (“sharp, pointed”). Cognate with Scots aix (“axe”), Dutch aks (“axe”), German Axt (“axe”), Danish økse (“axe”), Faroese, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk øks (“axe”), Icelandic öxi (“axe”), Swedish yxa (“axe”), Latin ascia (“axe, mason's trowel”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: ax, æx, *akusi, *akwisī, *h₂egʷsih₂, axe