Word.ws English Dictionary

take up the hatchet

take up the hatchet verb: to declare war or go to war.

Verb

take up the hatchet (third-person singular simple present takes up the hatchet, present participle taking up the hatchet, simple past took up the hatchet, past participle taken up the hatchet)

  1. (archaic, idiomatic) To declare war or go to war.

Antonyms of take up the hatchet

Forms of take up the hatchet

third-person singular presenttakes up the hatchet
present participletaking up the hatchet
pasttook up the hatchet
past participletaken up the hatchet

Origin of take up the hatchet

Referring to Native Americans' use of the tomahawk.

Questions about take up the hatchet

What does take up the hatchet mean?
Take up the hatchet means to declare war or go to war.
What part of speech is take up the hatchet?
Take up the hatchet is a verb.
What is the past tense of take up the hatchet?
The past tense of take up the hatchet is took up the hatchet.

Words near take up the hatchet in the dictionary

  1. take up the cudgel for
  2. take up the cudgels
  3. take up the gantlet
  4. take up the gauntlet
  5. take up the glove
  6. take up the hatchet
  7. take up the mantle
  8. take up the running
  9. take up the slack
  10. take up with
  11. take upon oneself

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: take up the hatchet (page history and authors). 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:

Cite this entry: “take up the hatchet.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/take_up_the_hatchet. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.