saw
/soː/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 5.34 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A tool used for cutting hard substances, in particular wood or metal.
noun
A tool used for cutting hard substances, in particular wood or metal.
noun
A musical saw.
noun
Example Sentences
- "Meronyms: sawtooth < sawblade"
- "They were stoned, they were sawen asunder, were tempted, were slaine with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskinnes, and goat skins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented."
- "He said he was sometimes whistling a tune to himself — for, like me, he sawed a good deal on the fiddle; […]"
- "The timber saws smoothly."
- "to saw boards or planks (i.e. to saw logs or timber into boards or planks)"
- "to saw shingles"
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *sek- Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *sok-éh₂ Proto-Germanic *sagō Proto-West Germanic *sagu Old English saga Middle English sawe English saw The noun from Middle English sawe, sawgh, from Old English saga, sagu (“saw”), from Proto-West Germanic *sagu, from Proto-Germanic *sagô, *sagō (“saw”), from Proto-Indo-European *sek- (“to cut”). Cognate with West Frisian seage (“saw”), Dutch zaag (“saw”), German Säge (“saw”), Danish sav (“saw”), Faroese, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk sag (“saw”), Swedish såg (“saw”), Icelandic sög (“saw”), and through Indo-European, with Latin secō (“cut”) and Italian sega (“saw”). The verb from Middle English sawen, from the noun above.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /soː/
- British English: /sɔː/
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in People.