hatchet
/ˈhæt͡ʃɪt/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.08 in modern English
15
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Example Sentences
- "“It must be admitted, Nick, you are a very literal logician—‘dog won't eat dog,’ is our English saying. Still the Yankee will fight the Yengeese, it would seem. In a word, the Great Father, in England, has raised the hatchet against his American children.”"
- "Buried was the bloody hatchet, / Buried was the dreadful war-club, / Buried were all warlike weapons, / And the war-cry was forgotten."
- "The fellow was armed with a stone-shod spear, a stone knife and a hatchet. In his black hair were several gay-colored feathers."
- "The metal axe continues for a long time to be made in the less efficient shape of the stone hatchet; stone buildings and tombs are made to imitate wooden ones; as Morgan pointed out, the names of family relationships in primitive languages reflect a pattern that has ceased to exist in the society in question."
- "to bury the hatchet"
- "hatchet job"
Etymology
From Middle English hachet, a borrowing from Old French hachete, diminutive of hache (“axe”), from Vulgar Latin *happia, from Frankish *happjā, from Proto-Germanic *hapjǭ, *habjǭ (“knife”), from Proto-Indo-European *kop- (“to strike, to beat”). Cognate with Old High German happa, heppa, habba (“reaper, sickle”), German Hippe (“billhook”), Dutch heep, hiep (“billhook”), and Ancient Greek κοπίς (kopís). Mostly displaced native Old English handæx, whence Modern English hand axe.