Word.ws English Dictionary

saw

UK/sɔː/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/soː/

saw noun: such a tool with a toothed blade. Also the simple past of see.

Noun (1)

saw (plural saws)

  1. (usually) Such a tool with a toothed blade.
    • Meronyms: sawtooth < sawblade
  2. (sometimes) Such a tool with an abrasive coating instead of teeth.
  3. A musical saw.
  4. A sawtooth wave.
  5. The situation where two partners agree to trump a suit alternately, playing that suit to each other for the express purpose.

Verb

saw (third-person singular simple present saws, present participle sawing, simple past sawed, past participle sawed or sawn)

  1. (transitive) 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.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Hebrews 11:37
  2. (intransitive) 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; […]1835, James Hogg, The Story of Euphemia Hewit
  3. (intransitive) To be cut with a saw.
    • The timber saws smoothly.
  4. (transitive) 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

Noun (2)

saw (plural saws)

  1. (obsolete) 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[…].1470–1485 (date produced), Thomas Malory, “(please specify the chapter)”, in [Le Morte Darthur], book V, [London: […] by William Caxton], published 31 July 1485, →OCLC; republished as H[einrich]...
  2. (archaic) 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.c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
    Synonyms:
    byword, saying, adage, proverb, maxim, apothegm, apophthegm, dictum, gnome, gnomic saying
  3. (obsolete) Opinion, idea, belief.
    • by thy saw
    • commune saw
  4. (obsolete) Proposal, suggestion; possibility.
    • All they assentyd to the sawe; They thoght he spake reson and lawe.c. 1350-1400, unknown, The Erl of Toulous
  5. (obsolete) Dictate; command; decree.
    • [Love] rules the creatures by his powerful saw.1595, Ed. Spencer [i.e., Edmund Spenser], “Colin Clouts Come Home Againe”, in Colin Clouts Come Home Againe, London: […] T[homas] C[reede] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

Interjection capitalized: SAW

SAW

  1. (proscribed, sometimes) صَلَّى اللّٰهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ (ṣallā llāhu ʕalayhi wa-sallama, “peace be upon him”)
    Synonyms:
    PBUH, AS

Noun (3) capitalized: SAW

SAW (plural SAWs)

  1. (US, abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of squad automatic weapon or initialism of section automatic weapon, a kind of light machine gun.
  2. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of surface acoustic wave.
  3. (abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of solar array wing

Proper noun (1) capitalized: SAW

SAW

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Stock Aitken Waterman, an English songwriting and record production trio.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Saw

Saw (plural Saws)

  1. A surname.

Noun (4) capitalized: Saw

Saw (plural Saws)

  1. (slang, African-American Vernacular) 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.1937, Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Harper Perennial, published 2000, page 154

Also used as

saw is also the simple past of see.

saw is also the past participle of see.

saw meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

saw in Hindi

tool
आरा ārā

saw in Tamil

tool
ரம்பம் rampam

saw in Urdu

tool
آرا ārā

saw in Bengali

tool
করাত korat
More languagesFewer languages
saw in Telugu
రంపము rampamu
saw in Kannada
ಕಂಡೆ
saw in Gujarati
કરવત karvat
saw in Assamese
কৰত korot
saw in Tagalog
lagari
saw in Arabic
مِنْشَار minšār, نَشَرَ našara
saw in Malay
gergaji, menggergaji
saw in Indonesian
gergaji, amsal, peri bahasa, petitih
saw in Persian
اره arre, منشار menšâr, اره کردن arre kardan
saw in Thai
เลื่อย lʉ̂ai
saw in Vietnamese
cưa, cái cưa
saw in Myanmar
လွှ hlwa.

Examples of saw in a sentence

  • Locally sawn lumber—whether from small mills, local yards, or urban logs—often shows much more variation.2026 August, Logan Wittmer, “Whiskey Cabinet”, in Popular Woodworking, volume 290, number 4, page 53:
  • At his crowning[…] the priest in his honour preached on the saw, 'Vox populi, vox Dei.'1902, Charles Robert Ashbee, Masque of the Edwards of England, page 8:

All 40 example sentences with saw

Synonyms of saw

4 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of saw

Forms of saw

Noun
pluralsaws
pluralSAWs
pluralSaws
Verb
third-person singular presentsaws
present participlesawing
pastsawed
past participlesawed
past participlesawn
Proper noun
pluralSaws
alternative formSawh

Past tense of saw: sawed

Plural of saw: saws

Origin of saw

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.

From Middle English sawe, from Old English sagu, saga (“story, tale, saying, statement, report, narrative, tradition”), from Proto-West Germanic *sagā, from Proto-Germanic *sagō, *sagǭ (“saying, story”), from Proto-Indo-European *sekʷe-, *skʷē-, from *sekʷ- (“to say”). Cognate with Dutch sage (“saga”), German Sage (“legend, saga, tale, fable”), Danish sagn (“legend”), Norwegian soga (“story”), Icelandic saga (“story, tale, history”). More at saga, say. Doublet of saga.

From Arabic

Words formed from saw

Phrases with saw

147 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with saw

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about saw

What does saw mean?
Saw means such a tool with a toothed blade.
What is saw in Hindi?
Saw in Hindi is आरा (ārā). See Saw meaning in Hindi.
How do you use saw in a sentence?
Locally sawn lumber—whether from small mills, local yards, or urban logs—often shows much more variation.
What part of speech is saw?
Saw can be a noun, a verb, an interjection or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce saw?
Saw is pronounced /sɔː/ (UK).
What is the plural of saw?
The plural of saw is saws.

Words near saw in the dictionary

  1. savviness
  2. savvinesses
  3. savvy
  4. savvying
  5. Savyasachi
  6. saw
  7. saw a man
  8. saw a man about a dog
  9. saw a man about a horse
  10. saw a way clear to
  11. saw a wolf

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: saw (page history and authors); SAW (page history and authors); Saw (page history and authors); saw (Kannada, 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)-Pvanp7-saw.wav, en-us-saw.ogg.

Cite this entry: “saw.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/saw. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.