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saw

noun
/sɔː/UK/soː/

Etymology

The noun from Middle English sawe, sawgh, from Old English saga, sagu (“saw”), from Proto-West Germanic *sagu, from Proto-Germanic *sagô, *sagō (“saw”), from Proto-Indo-European *sek- (“to cut”). Cognate with West Frisian seage (“saw”), Dutch zaag (“saw”), German Säge (“saw”), Danish sav (“saw”), Faroese, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk sag (“saw”), Swedish såg (“saw”), Icelandic sög (“saw”), and through Indo-European, with Latin secō (“cut”) and Italian sega (“saw”). The verb from Middle English sawen, from the noun above.

  1. inherited from sawen
  2. derived from *sek-✻ — “to cut”
  3. inherited from *sagô✻
  4. inherited from *sagu✻
  5. inherited from saga
  6. inherited from sawe

Definitions

  1. A tool used for cutting hard substances, in particular wood or metal.

    • Meronyms: sawtooth < sawblade

  2. A musical saw.

  3. A sawtooth wave.

  4. ›+ 19 more definitions

    1. The situation where two partners agree to trump a suit alternately, playing that suit to…

      The situation where two partners agree to trump a suit alternately, playing that suit to each other for the express purpose.

    2. To cut (something) with a saw.

      • They were stoned, they were sawen asunder, were tempted, were slaine with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskinnes, and goat skins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented.

    3. To make a motion back and forth similar to cutting something with a saw.

      • He said he was sometimes whistling a tune to himself — for, like me, he sawed a good deal on the fiddle; […]

    4. To be cut with a saw.

      • The timber saws smoothly.

    5. To form or produce (something) by cutting with a saw.

      • to saw boards or planks (i.e. to saw logs or timber into boards or planks)
      • to saw shingles
      • to saw out a panel

    6. Something spoken

      Something spoken; speech, discourse.

      • And for thy trew sawys, and I may lyve many wynters, there was never no knyght better rewardid[…]. And for your true discourses, and I may live many winters, there was never no knight better rewarded[…].

    7. A saying or proverb.

      • old saw
      • And then the justice, / In fair round belly with good capon lined, / With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, / Full of wise saws and modern instances.
      • At his crowning[…] the priest in his honour preached on the saw, 'Vox populi, vox Dei.'

    8. Opinion, idea, belief.

      • by thy saw
      • commune saw
      • on no saw

    9. Proposal, suggestion

      Proposal, suggestion; possibility.

      • c. 1350-1400, unknown, The Erl of Toulous All they assentyd to the sawe; They thoght he spake reson and lawe.

    10. Dictate

      Dictate; command; decree.

      • [Love] rules the creatures by his powerful saw.

    11. simple past of see

    12. past participle of see

      • Mr. Harbaugh. All instances that I have saw.
      • “I think so. He might have saw him already. Shit dude, I don't know. You run the place.”
      • “I might have saw something,” I told him. “At least I think I might have saw something. Only I couldn't say what.”

    13. صَلَّى اللّٰهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ (ṣallā llāhu ʕalayhi wa-sallama, “peace be upon him”)

    14. Acronym of squad automatic weapon or section automatic weapon, a kind of light machine…

      Acronym of squad automatic weapon or section automatic weapon, a kind of light machine gun.

    15. Initialism of surface acoustic wave.

    16. Acronym of solar array wing

    17. Initialism of Stock Aitken Waterman, an English songwriting and record production trio.

    18. A surname.

    19. A Bahamian.

      • Since Tea Cake and Janie had friended with the Bahaman workers in the ’Glades, they, the “Saws,” had been gradually drawn into the American crowd.

The neighborhood

Derived

saw-stool, saw-trestle, saw doctor, saw-edged, saw file, saw gin, saw palmetto, saw set, saw wrest, sawback, sawblade, sawbones, sawbuck, sawgrass, sawhorse, sawist, sawlog, sawman, sawmill, sawpit, saw-scaled viper, saw stroke, saw-whet owl, sawtooth, saw-tooth, saw-toothed, sawyer, saw gourds, saw logs, saw off, saw off the branch one is sitting on, saw the baby in half, saw wood, old saw, soothsaw, withsaw

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at saw. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01saw02wood03substance04firmness05firm06trades07ellipsis08mark09visible10seen

A definitional loop anchored at saw. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

10 hops · closes at saw

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA