Other forms: machetes
A machete is a large heavy blade used for cutting undergrowth. Swing a machete, cut a path with a machete, a rusty machete.
It is a farm and forest tool first, used for cane, brush and coconuts across the tropics. The weight does the work, so it is swung rather than pushed like a knife.
1nounmacheteA large heavy blade used for cutting undergrowth.
“He cleared the path with a machete in twenty minutes.”
machete is a tool.
Spanish machete is a diminutive of macho, a sledgehammer, from Latin marcus, a hammer.
Latin
mattea
Spanish
machete
English, today
machete
Built from
From Spanish machete, diminutive of macho (“sledgehammer”), from Latin mattea, possibly from mactare (“slaughter in sacrifice”); cognate with Old French machier, French massue, English mace.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA