hatchet
Sign in to savethumb|Retailer & manufacturer's distinction of axe and hatchet thumb|Hatchet thumb|250px|right|A hand axe (note the lack of a hammer head) A hatchet (from the Old French , a diminutive form of hache, 'axe' of Germanic origin) is a single-handed striking tool with a sharp blade on one side used to cut and split wood, and a hammerhead on the other side. Hatchets may also be used for hewing when making flattened surfaces on logs; when the hatchet head is optimized for this purpose it is called a hewing hatchet.
~2 min read
Encyclopedic overview
3 sectionsContents
- Sport hatchets
- References
- See also
thumb|Retailer & manufacturer's distinction of axe and hatchet thumb|Hatchet thumb|250px|right|A hand axe (note the lack of a hammer head) A hatchet (from the Old French , a diminutive form of hache, 'axe' of Germanic origin) is a single-handed striking tool with a sharp blade on one side used to cut and split wood, and a hammerhead on the other side. Hatchets may also be used for hewing when making flattened surfaces on logs; when the hatchet head is optimized for this purpose it is called a hewing hatchet.
The earliest known use of the noun hatchet is in the Middle English period (1150—1500) Although 'hand axe' and 'hatchet' are often used interchangeably in contemporary usage, 19th and 20th century American manufacturers and retailers (Collins, Kelly, Vaughan, Warren, Mann; Simmons, Shapleigh, Sears, et al.) unanimously distinguished hatchets from hand axes in their product catalogs, listing them in separate groupings.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “hatchet” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.