Sax
/sæks/ name, noun, verb
name, noun, verb ·Uncommon ·College level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 Alternative spelling of zax. alt-of, alternative
- 2 Clipping of saxophone. abbreviation, alt-of, clipping
- 3 a shade of colour similar to sky blue
- 4 a single-reed woodwind with a conical bore wordnet
- 5 A knife or sword; a dagger about 50 cm (20 inches) in length. obsolete
Verb
- 1 To cut or slash with a sharp instrument; incise; scarify. British, dialectal, transitive
- 2 To play the saxophone
Proper Noun
- 1 Acronym of Simple API for XML. Internet, abbreviation, acronym, alt-of
- 2 A surname.
Example
More examples"She was a tiny girl, but she really held her own on the baritone sax. Nonetheless, I couldn't help but imagine the thing wrapping itself around her and devouring her like a boa constrictor."
Etymology
Etymology 1
From Middle English sax, sex, from Old English seax (“a knife, hip-knife, an instrument for cutting, a short sword, dirk, dagger”), from Proto-West Germanic *sahs, from Proto-Germanic *sahsą (“stone chip, knife”), from Proto-Indo-European *sek- (“to cut”). Doublet of seax and zax.
Etymology 2
Clipping of saxophone. Distantly related to etymology 1 above, because the “Sax” surname is a cognate.
Etymology 3
Clipping of saxe blue, from the name of the region of Saxony.
Etymology 4
From the German surname, spelling variant of Sachs.