English

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A wooden-handled hatchet.

Etymology

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From Middle English hachet, a borrowing from Old French hachete, diminutive of hache (axe), from Vulgar Latin *happia, from Frankish *happjā, from Proto-Germanic *hapjǭ, *habjǭ (knife), from Proto-Indo-European *kop- (to strike, to beat). Cognate with Old High German happa, heppa, habba (reaper, sickle), German Hippe (billhook), Dutch heep, hiep (billhook), and Ancient Greek κοπίς (kopís). Mostly displaced native Old English handæx, whence Modern English hand axe.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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hatchet (plural hatchets)

  1. A small, light axe with a short handle; a tomahawk.
  2. (figurative) Belligerence, animosity; harsh criticism.
    to bury the hatchet
    hatchet job
    • 1843, [James Fenimore Cooper], Wyandotté, or The Hutted Knoll. [], volume I, Philadelphia, Pa.: Lea and Blanchard, →OCLC, page 42:
      “Dat true as missionary! What a soldier do, cap'in, if so much peace? Warrior love a war-path.”
      “I wish it were not so, Nick. But my hatchet is buried, I hope, for ever.”
    • 2016 April 9, Philip Oltermann, “Michael Hofmann: ‘English is basically a trap. It’s almost a language for spies’”, in The Guardian[1], →ISSN:
      The savagery with which Michael Hofmann can wield a hatchet has earned him unlikely fans outside the literary circuit. A recent issue of Viz ran a cartoon of the critic, poet and translator urinating all over a phone booth, while two donnish FR Leavis types nodded appreciatively from a safe distance.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Verb

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hatchet (third-person singular simple present hatchets, present participle hatcheting or hatchetting, simple past and past participle hatcheted or hatchetted)

  1. (transitive) To cut with a hatchet.