seax - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Learned borrowing from Old English seax (dagger). Doublet of sax and zax.

seax (plural seaxes)

  1. (historical) A short Saxon sword.
    • 1786, Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, page 34:

      The Pugio or Dagger was used by the Romans, a species of that weapon called the Hand Seax was worn by the Saxons, with which they massacred the English on Salisbury Plain in 476.

    • 1950 June, Michael Robbins, “Heraldry of London Underground Railways”, in Railway Magazine, page 380:

      It consisted of the arms of the City of London, Middlesex (three seaxes, or Saxon swords), Buckingham (a swan), and Hertford (a hart), arranged quarterly, on a background of crimson and ermine mantling [] .

seax

  1. (Early Middle English) alternative form of sax

From Proto-West Germanic *sahs, from Proto-Germanic *sahsą. Compare Old English sagu, seċġ.

seax n

  1. knife
    Synonym: (rare or dialectical) cnīf

Strong a-stem: