ˈbroad-axe
An axe with a broad head, used for hewing timber, and formerly in war.
| 1352 Minot Poems (1825) 29 To batail..With brade ax, and with bowes bent. c 1400 Epiph. 737 (Turnb. 1843) Summe had twybyll, brodax, and nawger. c 1450 Gloss. Garlande in Wright Voc. 137 Dolabra, (gloss.) brode axe. 1530 Palsgr. 201/2 Broode axe, hache large. 1855 W. Sargent Braddock's Exped. 84 A roof of puncheons, rudely shaped with the broad-axe. 1876 Bancroft Hist. U.S. III. xvi. 494 They..split open his doors with broad-axes. |