Ax

ax
    n 1: an edge tool with a heavy bladed head mounted across a
         handle [syn: {ax}, {axe}]
    v 1: chop or split with an ax; "axe wood" [syn: {axe}, {ax}]
    2: terminate; "The NSF axed the research program and stopped
       funding it" [syn: {ax}, {axe}]
    

Ax \Ax\ ([a^]ks), v. t. & i. [OE. axien and asken. See {Ask}.]
   To ask; to inquire or inquire of.
   [1913 Webster]

   Note: This word is from Saxon, and is as old as the English
         language. Formerly it was in good use, but now is
         regarded as a vulgarism. It is still dialectic in
         England, and is sometimes heard among the uneducated in
         the United States. "And Pilate axide him, Art thou king
         of Jewis?" "Or if he axea fish." --Wyclif. 'bdThe king
         axed after your Grace's welfare." --Pegge.
         [1913 Webster]
    

Ax \Ax\, Axe \Axe\, ([a^]ks), n. [OE. ax, axe, AS. eax, [ae]x,
   acas; akin to D. akse, OS. accus, OHG. acchus, G. axt, Icel.
   ["o]x, ["o]xi, Sw. yxe, Dan. ["o]kse, 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]

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

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

   Note: 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]

   Note: "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]
    

139 Moby Thesaurus words for "ax":
      amputate, battle-ax, beheading, bisect, blade, block, boot out,
      bounce, burning, butcher, can, capital punishment, carve, cashier,
      cashiering, chop, cleave, cold steel, conge, cross, crucifixion,
      cut, cut away, cut in two, cut off, cutlery, cutter, dagger,
      death chair, death chamber, decapitation, decollation,
      defenestration, deposal, dichotomize, discharge, disemployment,
      dismissal, displacing, dissever, drop, drumming out, edge tools,
      electric chair, electrocution, excise, execution, fire, firing,
      fissure, forced separation, furloughing, fusillade, gallows,
      gallows-tree, garrote, gas chamber, gash, gassing, gibbet,
      guillotine, hack, halberd, halter, halve, hanging, hatchet,
      hemlock, hemp, hempen collar, hew, hot seat, incise, jigsaw,
      judicial murder, kick out, knife, lance, lapidation, layoff,
      lethal chamber, maiden, naked steel, necktie party, noose, pare,
      pigsticker, pink slip, point, poisoning, poleax, prune, puncturer,
      removal, rend, retirement, rive, rope, sack, saw, scaffold,
      scissor, sever, sharpener, shooting, slash, slice, slit, snip,
      split, stake, steel, stoning, strangling, strangulation, sunder,
      surplusing, suspension, sword, tear, terminate, the ax, the block,
      the boot, the bounce, the chair, the gallows, the gas chamber,
      the gate, the guillotine, the hot seat, the rope, the sack, ticket,
      toad sticker, tomahawk, tree, walking papers, whittle