Definitions

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

  • noun A light ax formerly used as a tool or weapon by certain Native American peoples.
  • noun A similar implement or weapon.
  • transitive verb To strike with or as if with a tomahawk.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The warax of the Indians of North America.
  • noun In heraldry, a bearing representing a hatchet of some fanciful form, supposed to be an Indian tomahawk.
  • Specifically, to cut sheep when shearing them.
  • To strike, cut, or kill with a tomahawk.

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

  • noun A kind of war hatchet used by the American Indians. It was originally made of stone, but afterwards of iron.
  • transitive verb To cut, strike, or kill, with a tomahawk.

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

  • noun An ax/axe used by American Indian (First Nations) warriors.
  • noun basketball : A dunk in which the person dunking the ball does so with his arm behind his head
  • noun geometry A geometric construction consisting of a semicircle and two line segments that serves as a tool for trisecting an angle; so called from its resemblance to the American Indian axe.
  • noun field hockey A field hockey shot style that involves a player turning their hockey stick upside-down and swinging it so that its inside edge will come into contact with the ball.
  • verb To strike with a tomahawk.

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

  • verb cut with a tomahawk
  • noun weapon consisting of a fighting ax; used by North American Indians
  • verb kill with a tomahawk

Etymologies

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

[Virginia Algonquian tamahaac.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From an Algonquian (most likely Powhatan) word. Compare Malecite-Passamaquoddy tomhikon ("ax"), Abenaki temahigan, demahigan ("ax").

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Examples

Comments

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  • Apparently the hockey meaning given by Wiktionary - "n. A field hockey shot style that involves a player turning their hockey stick upside-down and swinging it so that its inside edge will come into contact with the ball." - is much more common in Australia and New Zealand.

    June 9, 2014

  • Possibly a loan word from the sport of tomahawkey.

    June 9, 2014