adze
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
noun
Etymology
Origin of adze
First recorded before 900; Middle English ad(e)se, Old English adesa; of obscure origin
Explanation
An adze is an old-fashioned kind of ax or hatchet, used to carve wood. The very oldest adze blades were made of stone. Way back in ancient Egypt, an adze's stone blade was tied to its wooden handle. When metal blades replaced the stone ones, they were usually fitted into notches in the handle of the adze. These ax-like tools are still used today — their curved shape, with blades perpendicular to the handles, lends itself well to woodworking.
Vocabulary lists containing adze
"The Odyssey," Vocabulary from Part 1 of the epic poem
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The Odyssey
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"The Odyssey" by Homer (Part One)
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It’s as if she’s been carved like an archetypal totem, but with matte and glossy house paint, charcoal and oil paint on canvas rather than with a chisel or an adze from stone or wood.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 31, 2022
For instance, it was Holm who in the 1960s showed the Tlingit master carver Nathan Jackson surfacing and texturing techniques with an adze.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 24, 2020
A wooden keel was shown with men of the adze and the plane.
From Slate ● Jun. 20, 2020
They’ve also found ample evidence of prehistoric carpentry: stone adzes, other woodworking tools, and even part of a pine log smoothed with an adze.
From Science Magazine ● Apr. 25, 2018
“I have only a saw, hammer, chisel, and adze, but we are managing alright,” he reported in his diary.
From "Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World" by Jennifer Armstrong
The religious art is mainly of two kinds: bultos or wooden sculptures, and retablos, paintings on adzed panels.
From Time Magazine Archive
The house was built of rough split timber, adzed slab-floor, iron roof, with an open fireplace and big "colonial" oven taking up all one end.
From From Chart House to Bush Hut Being the Record of a Sailor's 7 Years in the Queensland Bush by Charles W. L. Bryde
They were dug from huge poplar logs, squared outside with the broad axe, and adzed within to a smooth finish.
From Dishes & Beverages of the Old South by Martha McCulloch-Williams
The ends are adzed smooth to present an even surface, drift-bolted to the ties, and all joints broken.
From Motor Truck Logging Methods Engineering Experiment Station Series, Bulletin No. 12 by Frederick Malcolm Knapp
It had been adzed to the smoothness of an axe-handle.
From King Spruce, A Novel by Holman Day
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
