ax

• enPR: ăks, IPA^(key): /æks/

  • Audio (UK)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -æks

ax (plural axes)

1. (American spelling) Alternative form of axe

ax (third-person singular simple present axes, present participle axing, simple past and past participle axed)

1. (American spelling) Alternative form of axe

From Middle English axen, aksen, axien, from Old English ācsian and āxian, showing metathesis from āscian. Ax/aks was common in literary works until about 1600.

ax (third-person singular simple present axes, present participle axing, simple past and past participle axed)

1. (now nonstandard or dialectical, especially African-American Vernacular and Bermuda) Alternative form of ask
   • c. 1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, "The Knight's Tale", Canterbury Tales (Ellesmere MS), ll. 1346–52:

     NOw loueres axe I now this question
     Who hath the worse Arcite or Palamon?
     That oon may seen his lady day by day
     But in prison he moot dwelle alway
     That oother wher hym list may ride or go
     But seen his lady shal he neuere mo

   • 1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], OCLC 762018299, Acts ]:

     When they were come togedder, they axed off hym, sayinge: Master wilt thou at this tyme restore agayne the kyngdom of israhel?

   • 1836, Joanna Baillie, The Alienated Manor, Act 4:

     Dolly: And if so be, why did you ax me to keep you company? Housekeeper wants me below to pick raisins.

   • 1879, William Barnes, “The Welshnut Tree”, in Complete Poems, volume 1, page 106:

     Ar try who'l ax em the hardest riddle,
     Ar soonest vind out oone put us, true...

   • 1887, Gilbert and Sullivan, Ruddigore, Act 1:

     Richard Dauntless: "But, axin' your pardon, miss, might I be permitted to salute the flag I'm a-goin' to sail under?"

   • 1979, Verna Mae Slone, What My Heart Wants to Tell, p. 18:

     ‘I axed him if he knowed the way and he said he had not fergitten the lay of the land.’

   • 2006 Sept. 17, David Mills, "Soft Eyes", The Wire, 00:19:01:

     Wise: Your boy left here a while ago
     Johnson: I ain' lookin' for him. He at his granmother's. I wanted to ax you somethin'.

   • 2013 September 5, James Burton, The Bermuda Sun‎:

     He's cool. Does triathlons dahn de Sahn. Don't drink. Ax me if I want a lift to de beach — he hurd it's a dahnce goin on dahn thurr.

This and related forms of ask have been used since Old English and were long employed in literature and prestige dialects. Chaucer used ask, ax, and axe interchangeably. They remain in use in some rural areas of Britain and Appalachia but are now regarded as nonstandard and primarily associated with AAVE dialects in the US and MLE dialects in the UK.

• McWhorter, John. "The 'Ax' versus 'Ask' Question", LA Times, 19 Jan. 2014.

ax

1. not

From Old Norse ax.

• IPA^(key): /axs/, /aks/

ax n (genitive singular ax, nominative plural öx)

1. ear (of corn)

ax

1. Alternative spelling of aks.
   • 2006, Amina Blackwood-Meeks, “Aiming at your dreams”, in The Jamaica Gleaner‎:

     “Well she sey one a de man dem come right up to har car window an show har fe him sign wid him finga, order har outa de plaza like sey it was him personal yaad an ax har if she tink sey chu hooman a go tun Prime Minista she can jus come park which part she have a mind. […] ”

     So she said one of the men walked right up to her car window and pointed at his sign with his finger and ordered her to leave the plaza as if it were his own home. He asked her if she thought that the fact that a woman was going to become Prime Minister that she could just park anywhere she wanted to. […]

From Old English æx, æcs, from Proto-West Germanic *akusi.

• axe, ex, exe
• (early) æxæ, æxe

• IPA^(key): /aks/
• Rhymes: -aks

ax (plural axes)

1. An axe (tool)
2. An axe (weapon)

• English: axe, ax
• Scots: aix

• “ax(e, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-04-24.

From Old English eax, from Proto-Germanic *ahsu.

• ȝex

• IPA^(key): /aks/
• Rhymes: -aks

ax (plural axes)

1. (rare) An axle, axletree, pole

• extre

• “ax(e, n.(2).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-04-24.

Akin to Persian خاک‎ (xâk, “earth, soil, dust”). Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eHs- (“to be dry”).

• IPA^(key): /ɑːx/

ax f (Arabic spelling ئاخ‎)

1. dirt, ground, soil, earth

   Synonyms: erd, xwelî

2. dust

   Synonym: xubar

3. matter

• binax

• Chyet, Michael L. (2003), “ax”, in Kurdish–English Dictionary, with selected etymologies by Martin Schwartz, New Haven and London: Yale University Press

ax

1. Contraction of a + les (to the)

From Proto-Germanic *ahsą, from *ahaz (“ear (of grain)”).

ax n (genitive ax, plural ǫx)

1. ear (of corn)

“ax”, in Geir T. Zoëga (1910) A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press

From French axe, from Latin axis.

ax n (plural axe)

1. axle
2. axis

From Old Norse ax.

ax n

1. an ear (fruiting body of a grain plant)