Axe
[æks]
Definition
(n.) A tool or instrument of steel, or of iron with a steel edge or blade, for felling trees, chopping and splitting wood, hewing timber, etc. It is wielded by a wooden helve or handle, so fixed in a socket or eye as to be in the same plane with the blade. The broadax, or carpenter's ax, is an ax for hewing timber, made heavier than the chopping ax, and with a broader and thinner blade and a shorter handle.
(-) Alt. of Axeman
Checker: Williams
Definition
n. a well-known tool or instrument for hewing or chopping usually of iron with a steel edge:—pl. Ax′es.
Edited by Bridget
Unserious Contents or Definition
Seeing an axe in a dream, foretells that what enjoyment you may have will depend on your struggles and energy. To see others using an axe, foretells, your friends will be energetic and lively, making existence a pleasure when near them. For a young woman to see one, portends her lover will be worthy, but not possessed with much wealth. A broken or rusty axe, indicates illness and loss of money and property.
Editor: Madge
Examples
- Saint Mary Axe! Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- While the frictional appliance is still employed in medicine, it ranks with the flint axe and the tinder-box in industrial obsolescence. Frank Lewis Dyer. Edison, His Life and Inventions.
- I longed to leave them as the criminal on the scaffold longs for the axe to descend: that is, I wished the pang over. Charlotte Bronte. Villette.
- Madame's resolute right hand was occupied with an axe, in place of the usual softer implements, and in her girdle were a pistol and a cruel knife. Charles Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities.
- The splendid armour of the combatants was now defaced with dust and blood, and gave way at every stroke of the sword and battle-axe. Walter Scott. Ivanhoe.
- But come, the back door is unlocked; there's an axe there, I put it there,--his room door is open; I'll show you the way. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom's Cabin.
- If it were the deuce's own scribble, and yo' axed me to read in it for yo'r sake, and th' oud gentleman's, I'd do it. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. North and South.
- Godfrey read it, and fell back in a chair as if he had been pole-axed. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
- They have a kind of hard flints, which, by grinding against other stones, they form into instruments, that serve instead of wedges, axes, and hammers. Jonathan Swift. Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World.
- I feel the rack pass over my body like the saws, and harrows, and axes of iron over the men of Rabbah, and of the cities of the children of Ammon! Walter Scott. Ivanhoe.
- In all modern mills these have been entirely displaced by porcelain rolls revolving on horizontal axes and crushing the grain between them. Edward W. Byrn. The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century.
- The crew had been able to muster but six firearms, so most of them were armed with boat hooks, axes, hatchets and crowbars. Edgar Rice Burroughs. Tarzan of the Apes.
- These were probably used as hand-axes. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- He had no tools to work with except those of the pioneers--axes, picks, and spades. Ulysses S. Grant. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant.
- I'd a deal sooner be flogged mysel'; but yo're not a common wench, axing yo'r pardon, nor yet have yo' common ways about yo'. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. North and South.
Typed by Arlene