Adze

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ædz/

Definitions

1. A tool with a curved blade set at right angles to the handle, used for shaping and hollowing out pieces of wood
2. A hand tool featuring a sharp, curved blade perpendicular to its handle, primarily employed for carving and hollowing wooden surfaces
3. This implement, characterized by its angled blade attached to a grip, is utilized for sculpting and shaping timber effectively

Etymology: The adze is one of the oldest cutting tools in the world, and its English name has come down through a long line of Germanic speech. Its Old English forms, "adesa" and "eadesa," go back to a Proto-Germanic form reconstructed as "adisô," and that in turn is linked to a Proto-Indo-European root that also gave the Hittite word for "axe" or "hatchet," "atešša." The Hittites wrote in Anatolia several thousand years ago, so the same basic idea of a cutting tool reaches back almost to the start of recorded history. Across the centuries the word moved into Middle English as "adse" and "adese," and its spelling gradually settled into the form used today. Its sense has stayed remarkably steady: a tool with a blade set at a right angle to the handle, swung toward the user to shape wood, as opposed to an axe, which is swung to split it.

Synonyms: tool, axe, chisel