Other forms: axes
An axe is the heavy blade on a handle used for chopping wood. Swing the axe, a sharp axe, an axe handle.
It works by concentrating the weight of the swing into a wedge, so a heavier head does more work than a harder swing. To have an axe to grind means to have a private motive. To get the axe means to be dismissed. Note the American spelling ax; and that the word is very old.
1nounaxeA heavy blade on a handle used for chopping.
“He split the logs with an axe and stacked them by the door.”
axe is a tool.
Also accepted in games: ax, hatchet
Old English aex comes from a Proto-Indo-European word for an axe. Latin ascia is a relative.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂egʷsih₂ — axe
Proto-Germanic
*akwisī — axe
Proto-West Germanic
*akusi — axe
Old English
æx — axe
Middle English
ax
English, today
axe
Built from
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”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA