Definitions

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

  • noun A large heavy knife with a broad blade, used as a weapon and an implement for cutting vegetation.
  • transitive verb To cut with a machete.
  • transitive verb To attack, wound, or kill with a machete.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A heavy knife or cutlass used among Spanish colonists and in Spanish-American countries, both as a tool and as a weapon.
  • noun A fish of the family Congrogadidœ, the Congrogadus (or Machœrium) subducens.
  • noun Formerly also matchet, matchette.

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

  • noun A large heavy knife resembling a broadsword, often two or three feet in length, -- used by the inhabitants of Spanish America as a hatchet to cut their way through thickets, and for various other purposes.

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

  • noun A sword-like tool used for cutting large plants with a chopping motion. A machete's blade is usually 50 to 65 centimeters (cm) long, and up to three millimeters (mm) thick.
  • verb To cut or chop with a machete.
  • verb To hack or chop crudely with a blade other than a machete.

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

  • noun a large heavy knife used in Central and South America as a weapon or for cutting vegetation

Etymologies

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

[Spanish, diminutive of macho, sledge hammer, alteration of mazo, club, probably from maza, mallet, from Vulgar Latin *mattea, mace; see mace.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Spanish machete, diminutive of macho ("sledgehammer"), from Latin mattea, cognate with Old French machier, French massue, English mace.

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Examples

  • And now 6 years later, his machete is still as sharp.

    Set Visit Preview: The New Friday the 13th « FirstShowing.net 2008

  • To them, carving out an eight month old foetus with a machete is much more than an aggravated assault upon the mother, it is an assault upon a second human being.

    The Order 2008

  • Old Tomás warned him, "I may be old, but my machete is young!"

    Three Tamales for the Señor Part Two 2008

  • Old Tomás warned him, "I may be old, but my machete is young!"

    Three Tamales for the Señor Part Two 2008

  • Old Tomás warned him, "I may be old, but my machete is young!"

    Three Tamales for the Señor Part Two 2008

  • They do carry machetes when they go out walking at night or in the campo, but (other than for work) the machete is mainly as protection against dogs or to whack a snake if they happen across one.

    Page 3 2006

  • They do carry machetes when they go out walking at night or in the campo, but (other than for work) the machete is mainly as protection against dogs or to whack a snake if they happen across one.

    Page 3 2006

  • They do carry machetes when they go out walking at night or in the campo, but (other than for work) the machete is mainly as protection against dogs or to whack a snake if they happen across one.

    Page 3 2006

  • They do carry machetes when they go out walking at night or in the campo, but (other than for work) the machete is mainly as protection against dogs or to whack a snake if they happen across one.

    Page 3 2006

  • They do carry machetes when they go out walking at night or in the campo, but (other than for work) the machete is mainly as protection against dogs or to whack a snake if they happen across one.

    Page 3 2006

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