poleaxe
Americannoun
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poleaxes
plural
noun
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another term for battle-axe
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a former naval weapon with an axe blade on one side of the handle and a spike on the other
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an axe used by butchers to slaughter animals
verb
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of poleaxe
C14 pollax battle-axe, from poll + axe
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:
But all of that is merely the amuse-bouche to the main appeal that “Veep” offers—pure, unadulterated cynicism, offered sparingly in 30-minute doses so as not to poleaxe its audience.
From Salon ● Jun. 10, 2015
There were poached rabbits on strings swung around heads, bigger and bigger swords pointed until the hysterical Olivia staggers out with a poleaxe and Rylance-style, usurps them all.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 12, 2012
"Ser Rodrik should teach me to use a poleaxe. If I had a poleaxe with a big long haft, Hodor could be my legs. We could be a knight together."
From "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin
I don't know what we should have done without you, for I never seed man handle a little poleaxe as you did that same affair of your'n.
From Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia by William Gilmore Simms
An offensive weapon of our early times, being a poleaxe with a spike at its end.
From The Sailor's Word-Book An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc. by Sir Edward Belcher
Dog-headed men prowled in packs, their poleaxes gleaming in the light of campfires.
From "Blood of Olympus" by Rick Riordan
Fight in the lists with poleaxes between Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and Sir Pandolf Malatesta, at Verona, temp.
From A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII by Samuel Rawson Gardiner
They were followed by twelve henchmen, walking four abreast, arrayed in scarlet tunics, with the royal cypher H.R. worked in gold on the breast, and carrying gilt poleaxes over their shoulders.
From Windsor Castle by William Harrison Ainsworth
We were six hundred, and marched with those damned poleaxes of Auberon's—the only weapons we've got.
From The Napoleon of Notting Hill by W. Graham (Walford Graham) Robertson
Men with lanterns and poleaxes, as if going to the shambles to kill oxen, hurried along the streets.
From The White Plumes of Navarre A Romance of the Wars of Religion by S. R. (Samuel Rutherford) Crockett
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.
