adze
/adz
/(US also adz)
noun
A tool similar to an axe, with an arched blade at right angles to the handle, used for cutting or shaping large pieces of wood.Tools consist now of bone, wood and stone, made up as an adze, knife blade, borer, arrow or spearhead....
- Specialized war weapons may be lacking - after all, war can be fought with such ordinary tools as adzes or hunting spears.
- A man sat near his house using an adze to sculpt a handle for his bill-hook.
verb (adz, adzing, adzed) [with object]
Cut away the surface of (a piece of wood) with an adze: by the time it has been adzed out, you will only have a small edge to clean up...
- A family of Tamil shipwrights were adzing baulks of timber into banana-shaped fishing rafts.
- The frames had been adzed to remove the sharp angle of a land, or notch, which originally housed the edge of the clinker plank.
- Timbers were hand adzed to give them a woody character.
Origin
Old English adesa, of unknown origin.