Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A tool with a bladed, usually heavy head mounted crosswise on a handle, used for felling trees or chopping wood.
  • noun Any of various bladed, handheld implements used as a cutting tool or weapon.
  • noun Informal A sudden termination of employment.
  • noun Slang A musical instrument, especially a guitar.
  • transitive verb To chop or fell with or as if with an ax.
  • transitive verb Informal To remove ruthlessly or suddenly.
  • idiom (ax to grind) A selfish or ulterior aim.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To shape or trim with an ax.
  • noun An axle; an axis.
  • noun An instrument used for hewing timber and chopping wood, and also as a weapon of offense.
  • Obsolete or dialectal forms of ask.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • verb To ask; to inquire or inquire of.
  • noun 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.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Alternative spelling of axe.
  • verb Alternative spelling of axe.
  • verb Alternative form of ask.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb terminate
  • verb chop or split with an ax
  • noun an edge tool with a heavy bladed head mounted across a handle

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English æx.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

See axe.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old English acsian, showing metathesis from ascian. The regular literary form until circa 1600.

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