ax

• enPR: ăks, IPA^(key): /æks/
• Rhymes: -æks

ax (plural axes)

1. (US) Alternative spelling of axe

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

1. Alternative spelling of axe

From Old English acsian/axian, showing metathesis from ascian. Ax/aks was the regular literary form until about 1600.

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

1. (now dialectal or nonstandard, especially African American Vernacular) Alternative form of ask

   1526, William Tyndale, trans. Bible, Acts I:

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

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

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

   1979, Verna Mae Slone, What My Heart Wants to Tell, Kentucky 1988, p. 18:

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

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition (2000), the form “ax” is now associated with African American Vernacular English, but in the past it was common among “white” Americans as well, especially in New England, and is a feature of some British dialects. It was a common word in English for a thousand years (Chaucer used both forms interchangeably), but is now stigmatized as substandard. This is similar to the case of words like ain't which were also acceptable in the past.

ax

1. not

From Old Norse ax, from Proto-Germanic *ahsą.

• IPA^(key): /axs/
• IPA^(key): /aks/

ax n (genitive singular ax, nominative plural öx)

1. ear (of corn)

• aax, hax

ax

1. ask

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

• axe, ex, exe, 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 *ahsō.

• 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.

ax

1. Contraction of a + les (to the)

From Proto-Germanic *ahsą.

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

ax n

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