adze
- adz.
adz
or adze
- an axlike tool, for dressing timbers roughly, with a curved, chisellike steel head mounted at a right angle to the wooden handle.
- to dress or shape (wood) with an adz.
Origin of adz
Examples from the Web for adze
Historical Examples of adze
Let us see: Suppose an adze were handed to a carpenter for him to square a beam with it.
Foma GordyeffMaxim Gorky
Chipping it with an adze, and boring it with an augur, to ascertain its quality.
The Sailor's Word-BookWilliam Henry Smyth
Presently, Adze called out that he had made the pumps act at last.
The White SquallJohn Conroy Hutcheson
It is of little consequence on which my adze is first employed.
The King's OwnCaptain Frederick Marryat
Deck wanted to know more about the man with the sledge and the adze.
In The SaddleOliver Optic
adze
US adz
- 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
Word Origin and History for 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].