saw.
A tool used for cutting hard substances, in particular wood or metal.
Meaning & usage
A tool used for cutting hard substances, in particular wood or metal. Such a tool with a toothed blade.
A tool used for cutting hard substances, in particular wood or metal. Such a tool with an abrasive coating instead of teeth.
A musical saw.
A sawtooth wave.
The situation where two partners agree to trump a suit alternately, playing that suit to each other for the express purpose.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *sek- Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *sok-éh₂ Proto-Germanic *sagō Proto-West Germanic *sagu Old English saga Middle English sawe English saw The noun from Middle English sawe, sawgh, from Old English saga, sagu (“saw”), from Proto-West Germanic *sagu, from Proto-Germanic *sagô, *sagō (“saw”), from Proto-Indo-European *sek- (“to cut”). Cognate with West Frisian seage (“saw”), Dutch zaag (“saw”), German Säge (“saw”), Danish sav (“saw”), Faroese, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk sag (“saw”), Swedish såg (“saw”), Icelandic sög (“saw”), and through Indo-European, with Latin secō (“cut”) and Italian sega (“saw”). The verb from Middle English sawen, from the noun above.
To cut (something) with a saw.
To make a motion back and forth similar to cutting something with a saw.
To be cut with a saw.
The timber saws smoothly.
To form or produce (something) by cutting with a saw.
to saw boards or planks (i.e. to saw logs or timber into boards or planks)
to saw shingles
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *sek- Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *sok-éh₂ Proto-Germanic *sagō Proto-West Germanic *sagu Old English saga Middle English sawe English saw The noun from Middle English sawe, sawgh, from Old English saga, sagu (“saw”), from Proto-West Germanic *sagu, from Proto-Germanic *sagô, *sagō (“saw”), from Proto-Indo-European *sek- (“to cut”). Cognate with West Frisian seage (“saw”), Dutch zaag (“saw”), German Säge (“saw”), Danish sav (“saw”), Faroese, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk sag (“saw”), Swedish såg (“saw”), Icelandic sög (“saw”), and through Indo-European, with Latin secō (“cut”) and Italian sega (“saw”). The verb from Middle English sawen, from the noun above.
Something spoken; speech, discourse.
A saying or proverb.
old saw
Opinion, idea, belief.
by thy saw
commune saw
Proposal, suggestion; possibility.
Dictate; command; decree.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *sekʷ- Proto-Germanic *sagǭ Proto-West Germanic *sagā Old English saga Middle English sawe English saw From Middle English sawe, from Old English sagu, saga (“story, tale, saying, statement, report, narrative, tradition”), from Proto-West Germanic *sagā, from Proto-Germanic *sagō, *sagǭ (“saying, story”), from Proto-Indo-European *sekʷe-, *skʷē-, from *sekʷ- (“to say”). Cognate with Dutch sage (“saga”), German Sage (“legend, saga, tale, fable”), Danish sagn (“legend”), Norwegian soga (“story”), Icelandic saga (“story, tale, history”). More at saga, say. Doublet of saga.
simple past of see
past participle of see
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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.