Synonyms:
ax, axe
Meaning: an edge tool with a heavy bladed head mounted across a handle
Usage examples
The giant with the ax stepped from hose to hose.
She was strong and swung an ax as skillfully as any man.
In one case the ax flew off the handle and went into the water.
Every student borrowed an ax and went to work felling trees along the river bank.
They killed off the varmints an' made it safe fur other fellers to go into the woods with an ax.
Uplifting an ax, and forgetting in my wrath the childish dread which had hitherto stayed my hand, I aimed a blow at the animal, which of course would have proved instantly fatal had it descended as I wished.
"Tom Lincoln was a carpenter, and a good one for those days, when a cabin was built mainly with the ax, and not a nail or a bolt or hinge in it, only leathers and pins to the doors, and no glass, except in watches and spectacles and bottles.
Here is where the massive stones were "made ready" and the master builder's plans were so perfect that, "there was neither hammer nor ax nor any tool of iron heard in the temple while it was in building." The marks of the mason's tools and the niches where their lamps were placed can be seen to this day.
It exudes from the heart-wood where wounds have been made by forest fires or the ax, and forms irregular, crisp, candy-like kernels of considerable size, something like clusters of resin beads. When fresh it is white, but because most of the wounds on which it is found have been made by fire the sap is stained and the hardened sugar becomes brown.
Behind them was a large clearing of about a hundred acres in extent; a comfortable house, with buildings for cattle, stood at a distance of some three hundred yards from the lake; broad fields of yellow corn waved brightly in the sun; and from the edge of the clearing came the sound of a woodsman's ax, showing that the proprietor was still enlarging the limits of his farm.