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machete.

A sword-like tool used for cutting large plants with a chopping motion, or used as a weapon.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/məˈʃɛ.ti//məˈt͡ʃɛ.ti//məˈt͡ʃɛ.teɪ/
  1. A sword-like tool used for cutting large plants with a chopping motion, or used as a weapon.

  2. A small stringed instrument from Madeira, Portugal, having a double bulged body, traditionally of wood, with a small rib and four metallic strings, sometimes attached by wooden pegs.

Where this word comes from

From Spanish machete, diminutive of macho (“sledgehammer”), from Latin mattea, possibly from mactare (“slaughter in sacrifice”); cognate with Old French machier, French massue, English mace.

verb/məˈʃɛ.ti//məˈt͡ʃɛ.ti//məˈt͡ʃɛ.teɪ/
  1. To cut or chop with a machete.

    transitive
    After some hours of intense work, we had macheted a path through the jungle to the bank of the river.
Where this word comes from

From Spanish machete, diminutive of macho (“sledgehammer”), from Latin mattea, possibly from mactare (“slaughter in sacrifice”); cognate with Old French machier, French massue, English mace.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.