hatchet
/ˈhæt͡ʃɪt/
hatchet noun: a small, light axe with a short handle; a tomahawk.

Noun
hatchet (plural hatchets)
- A small, light axe with a short handle; a tomahawk.
- “It must be admitted, Nick, you are a very literal logician—‘dog won't eat dog,’ is our English saying. Still the Yankee will fight the Yengeese, it would seem. In a word, the Great Father, in England, has raised the hatchet against his American children.”1843, [James Fenimore Cooper], Wyandotté, or The Hutted Knoll. […], volume I, Philadelphia, Pa.: Lea and Blanchard, →OCLC, page 117
- Buried was the bloody hatchet, / Buried was the dreadful war-club, / Buried were all warlike weapons, / And the war-cry was forgotten.1855 November 10, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Blessing the Corn-fields”, in The Song of Hiawatha, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 175
- Belligerence, animosity; harsh criticism.
- to bury the hatchet
- hatchet job
Verb
hatchet (third-person singular simple present hatchets, present participle hatcheting or (rare) hatchetting, simple past and past participle hatcheted or (rare) hatchetted)
- To cut with a hatchet.
hatchet meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
hatchet in Hindi
- small axe
- परशु parśu, तवर tavar
hatchet in Tamil
- கைக்கோடரி, கைச்சிறு கோடரி, கண்டகோடரி, கோடரி, கோடாரியலகு, கைக்கோடாரி
hatchet in Marathi
- हॅचेट, हॅटकेट
hatchet in Urdu
- بسولا, چھوٹی کلہاڑی, تبّر
More languagesFewer languages
- hatchet in Bengali
- হ্যাচেট
- hatchet in Telugu
- మడ్డుకత్తి maḍḍukatti, పరశువు paraśuvu
- hatchet in Malayalam
- മഴു, കോടാലി, ഇദ്ധ്മവ്രശ്നം, കുഠാരം
- hatchet in Kannada
- ಕೈಗೊಡಲಿ, ಸಣ್ಣ ಕೊಡಲಿ, ಮಚ್ಚು, ಮಚ್ಚುಕತ್ತಿ
- hatchet in Punjabi
- ਹੈਚੇਟ
- hatchet in Odia
- ହ୍ଯ଼ାଚେଟ୍
- hatchet in Sanskrit
- परशु paraśu
- hatchet in Nepali
- ह्याचेट
- hatchet in Tagalog
- puthaw
- hatchet in Persian
- تیشه tiše
- hatchet in Thai
- ขวาน kwǎan
- Sindhi
- ڪھاڙي khāṛe
Examples of hatchet in a sentence
- The fellow was armed with a stone-shod spear, a stone knife and a hatchet.1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp....
- The savagery with which Michael Hofmann can wield a hatchet has earned him unlikely fans outside the literary circuit.2016 April 9, Philip Oltermann, “Michael Hofmann: ‘English is basically a trap. It’s almost a language for spies’”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
Forms of hatchet
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | hatchets |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | hatchets |
| present participle | hatcheting |
| past participle | hatcheted |
| past | hatcheted |
| present participle (rare) | hatchetting |
| past participle (rare) | hatchetted |
| past (rare) | hatchetted |
Origin of hatchet
From Middle English hachet, a borrowing from Old French hachete, diminutive of hache (“axe”), from Vulgar Latin *happia, from Frankish *happjā, from Proto-Germanic *hapjǭ, *habjǭ (“knife”), from Proto-Indo-European *kop- (“to strike, to beat”). Cognate with Old High German happa, heppa, habba (“reaper, sickle”), German Hippe (“billhook”), Dutch heep, hiep (“billhook”), and Ancient Greek κοπίς (kopís). Mostly displaced native Old English handæx, whence Modern English hand axe.
Words formed from hatchet
Phrases with hatchet
- hatchet men
- hatchet jobs
- hatchet faces
- hatchet wounds
- slung the hatchet
- threw the hatchet
- buried the hatchet
- buries the hatchet
- slings the hatchet
- thrown the hatchet
- throws the hatchet
- burying the hatchet
6 more phrasesFewer phrases
Words that rhyme with hatchet
Questions about hatchet
- What does hatchet mean?
- Hatchet means a small, light axe with a short handle; a tomahawk.
- What is hatchet in Hindi?
- Hatchet in Hindi is परशु (parśu), तवर (tavar). See Hatchet meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use hatchet in a sentence?
- The fellow was armed with a stone-shod spear, a stone knife and a hatchet.
- What part of speech is hatchet?
- Hatchet can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce hatchet?
- Hatchet is pronounced /ˈhæt͡ʃɪt/.
- What is the plural of hatchet?
- The plural of hatchet is hatchets.
Words near hatchet in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: hatchet (page history and authors); hatchet (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); hatchet (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); hatchet (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); hatchet (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); పరశువు (Telugu) (page history and authors); hatchet (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); hatchet (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); hatchet (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); hatchet (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); hatchet (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-hatchet.wav.
Cite this entry: “hatchet.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hatchet. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
