Handsaw

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A cutting instrument designed for manual use that features a long, serrated blade intended to slice through wood and other materials
2. An implement for hand-operated cutting, featuring a toothed blade that is effective for severing wood and similar substances
3. A manual cutting tool characterized by a long, jagged blade which is specifically made for slicing through various materials like wood and other fibrous substances

Etymology: The tool's name is a compound of two plain English words, "hand" and "saw," and the combination has been in use in English since the Middle Ages, when the Middle English form "handsawe" appeared. What makes the story unusual is the second strand of its history: one of the sources of the modern spelling is a corruption of "heronshaw," an entirely different word for a bird, the heron. The "heronshaw" link is a case of a word being reshaped by people who did not recognise its original sense. Speakers who heard "heronshaw" as a meaningless sound dropped it into the familiar "handsaw" pattern, so a heron-related term ended up naming a carpenter's tool. The shift is a reminder that compound words can sometimes hide older material that has been bent to fit more familiar parts. Across the Germanic languages the same pairing recurs: Dutch "handzaag," German "Handsäge," Swedish "handsåg," and Danish "håndsav" all describe the same kind of hand-held saw, showing that the compound formed independently in several languages.

Synonyms: saw, cutting tool, hand tool