Axeman

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who wields an axe, typically for chopping wood or cutting down trees
2. Someone skilled in using an axe for tasks such as felling trees or splitting logs
3. An individual engaged in cutting or shaping wood by means of an axe

Etymology: "Axeman" is about as transparent as English compounds get: "axe" joined to "man," with nothing else going on. The first element traces back through Old English "æx" to a prehistoric Germanic root shared with words in several related languages, while "man" is the ordinary Old English word for a human being, a sense that survives in the compound. Put together, the word names a person defined by a tool, much like "horseman" or "marksman." The compound's real interest lies in how the tool-maker and the tool-user blur together. Because "axeman" is built from the most basic words available, it has been used for anyone who works with an axe, from a lumberjack felling pines to a worker splitting kindling by a woodstove. The word does not carry the specialised connotations that some occupational compounds acquired, so its meaning has stayed close to its literal parts.

Synonyms: woodsman, lumberjack, logger