adze

[ adz ]

/ ædz /

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR adze ON THESAURUS.COM

noun, verb (used with object), adzed, adz·ing.

adz.

RELATED WORDS

blade, knife, gouge, edge

Nearby words

adz

or adze

[ adz ]

/ ædz /

noun

an axlike tool, for dressing timbers roughly, with a curved, chisellike steel head mounted at a right angle to the wooden handle.

verb (used with object)

to dress or shape (wood) with an adz.

Origin of adz

before 900; Middle English ad(e)se, Old English adesa; *ad-es-, of obscure origin, appears to be formed like ax, and might by association with the latter have lost *w-; if so, < Germanic *wad-, cognate with Lithuanian vedegà adz

Can be confusedadds ads adz

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for adze

He made what is called an adze-handled hammer, the head being attached to the handle after the manner of an adze.
Captains of Industry|James Parton
One of them, described as an "adze," was exhibited by Captain Duff, who wrote that there was no stone like it in its neighborhood.
The Book of the Damned|Charles Fort
I am a carpenter to trade, as was St Joseph of old; and I handle the hatchet and adze, for your benefit.
Economic Sophisms|Frederic Bastiat
Chipping it with an adze, and boring it with an augur, to ascertain its quality.
The Sailor's Word-Book|William Henry Smyth

Within, there were seats with kneeling-planks, hewed out of hard wood and still bearing the marks of the adze.
White Shadows in the South Seas|Frederick O'Brien

British Dictionary definitions for adze

adze

US adz

/ (ædz) /

noun

a heavy hand tool with a steel cutting blade attached at right angles to a wooden handle, used for dressing timber

Word Origin for adze

Old English adesa

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for adze

adze

also adz, Middle English adese, adse, from Old English adesa "adze, hatchet," of unknown origin, perhaps somehow related to Old French aisse, Latin ascia "axe" (see ax). Spelling with -z- is from 18c. Adze "has been monosyllabic only since the seventeenth century. The word has no cognates, though it resembles the names of the adz and the hammer in many languages" [Liberman, 2008].