{ } n. [ OE. ax, axe, AS. eax, æx, acas; akin to D. akse, OS. accus, OHG. acchus, G. axt, Icel. öx, öxi, Sw. yxe, Dan. ökse, Goth. aqizi, Gr. 'axi`nh, L. ascia; not akin to E. acute. ] A tool or instrument of steel, or of iron with a steel edge or blade, for felling trees, chopping and splitting wood, hewing timber, etc. It is wielded by a wooden helve or handle, so fixed in a socket or eye as to be in the same plane with the blade. The broadax, or carpenter's ax, is an ax for hewing timber, made heavier than the chopping ax, and with a broader and thinner blade and a shorter handle. [ 1913 Webster ]

The ancient battle-ax had sometimes a double edge. [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ The word is used adjectively or in combination; as, axhead or ax head; ax helve; ax handle; ax shaft; ax-shaped; axlike. [ 1913 Webster ]

This word was originally spelt with e, axe; and so also was nearly every corresponding word of one syllable: as, flaxe, taxe, waxe, sixe, mixe, pixe, oxe, fluxe, etc. This superfluous e is not dropped; so that, in more than a hundred words ending in x, no one thinks of retaining the e except in axe. Analogy requires its exclusion here. [ 1913 Webster ]

“The spelling ax is better on every ground, of etymology, phonology, and analogy, than axe, which has of late become prevalent.” New English Dict. (Murray). [ 1913 Webster ]

{ etc. } See Ax, Axman. [ 1913 Webster ]

adj. 1. raised under sterile conditions; -- of experimental animals; as, axenic conditions. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

2. pure or completely free of the presence of other organisms; -- used of cultures of microorganisms; as, an axenic culture.
Syn. -- uncontaminated; germ-free. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

n. 1. a vitamin essential for normal vision (C20H30O); it prevents night blindness or inflammation or dryness of the eyes; same as vitamin A. One U.S.P. unit of vitamin A is equivalent to 0.30 micrograms of pure vitamin A alcohol.
Syn. -- vitamin A; vitamin A alcohol; antiophthalmic factor; biosterol; retinol; A. [ WordNet 1.5 +PJC ]

{ } n. (Mil.) A kind of broadax formerly used as an offensive weapon. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. a West Indian timber tree (Sloanea jamaicensis) having very hard wood.
Syn. -- breakax. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

{ } n. 1. An ancient military weapon; a battle-ax. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. An ax with a broad edge, for hewing timber. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. One who coaxes. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. [ AS. feaxede haired, fr. feax hair. Cf. Paxwax. ] Hairy. [ Obs. ] amden. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. Made of flax; resembling flax or its fibers; of the color of flax; of a light soft straw color; fair and flowing, like flax or tow; as, flaxen thread; flaxen hair. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. One who hoaxes. [ 1913 Webster ]

{ } pos>n. [ So called from Lochaber, in Scotland. ] A weapon of war, consisting of a pole armed with an axhead at its end, formerly used by the Scotch Highlanders. [ 1913 Webster ]

{ } n. [ A corruption of OE. pikois, pikeis, F. picois, fr. pic. See Pick, n. ] A pick with a point at one end, a transverse edge or blade at the other, and a handle inserted at the middle; a hammer with a flattened end for driving wedges and a pointed end for piercing as it strikes. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. 1. To fell with or as if with a poleax; -- often used figuratively; as, the entire department was poleaxed after the takeover. [ WordNet 1.5 + PJC ]

2. Stunned; astonished;; as, we couldn't speak, poleaxed by the sight in fronnt fo us. [ PJC ]

{ } n. [ OE. pollax; cf. OD. pollexe. See Poll head, and Ax. ] Anciently, a kind of battle-ax with a long handle; later, an ax or hatchet with a short handle, and a head variously patterned; -- used by soldiers, and also by sailors in boarding a vessel. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. (Zool.) The American badger. [ 1913 Webster ]

‖n. pl. [ NL., fr. Gr. &unr_; (?) + -poda. ] (Paleon.) An order of extinct Mammalia found in the Tertiary formations. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. 1. One who taxes. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. One of two officers chosen yearly to regulate the assize of bread, and to see the true gauge of weights and measures is observed. [ Camb. Univ., Eng. ] [ Written also taxor. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

a. Taxed too little, or at a lower rate than others. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. 1. Made of wax. “The female bee, that . . . builds her waxen cells.” Milton. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Covered with wax; waxed; as, a waxen tablet. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. Resembling wax; waxy; hence, soft; yielding. [ 1913 Webster ]

Men have marble, women waxen, minds. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

Waxen chatterer (Zool.), the Bohemian chatterer. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ Cf. Wood-wax. ] (Bot.) A leguminous plant (Genista tinctoria) of Europe and Russian Asia, and adventitious in America; -- called also greenwood, greenweed, dyer's greenweed, and whin, wood-wash, wood-wax, and wood-waxen. [ 1913 Webster ]

{ } n. [ AS. wuduweaxe. ] (Bot.) Same as Woadwaxen. [ 1913 Webster ]