handsawn.
/ˈhan(d)sɔː/, U.S. /ˈhæn(d)ˌsɔ/, /ˈhæn(d)ˌsɑ/ Any of various types of saw able to be worked with one hand.
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society > occupation and work > equipment > cutting tool > saw > [noun] > other saws
handsaw1399
rug-saw1582
frame saw1633
nocksaw1659
bow-saw1678
lock saw1688
stadda1688
wire saw1688
panel saw1754
keyhole saw1761
web saw1799
table saw1832
rack saw1846
scroll-saw1851
fretsaw1865
back saw1874
foxtail-saw1874
tub-saw1874
gullet-saw1875
Swede saw1934
1399 in J. Raine Fabric Rolls York Minster (1859) 17 (MED) j handsagh, j shovel.
1497 in M. Oppenheim Naval Accts. & Inventories Henry VII (1896) 324 Also for an handesaw price vjd.
1538 Accts. St. John's Hosp., Canterbury (Canterbury Cathedral Archives: CCA-U13/4) Payd for haftyng off the ij hand saw.
1598 W. Shakespeare Henry IV, Pt. 1 ii. v. 168 My buckler cut through and through, my sworde hackt like a handsaw . View more context for this quotation
1640 Inventory 28 Sept. in J. H. Trumbull Public Rec. Colony Connecticut (1850) I. 448 Two hand sawes, one frameing saw, one hack saw, £1.
1692 J. Smith Scarronnides Pref. sig. [A]8 'Tis all the world to a handsaw but these barbarous Rascals would be so ill-manner'd as to laugh at us.
1739 A. Cruden London-citizen exceedingly Injured 35 The Prisoner being still chained wrote a Letter to Serjeant Cruden to send him a hand-saw, doubting the strength of the knife.
1798 C. Greville in Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 88 413 A stone-cutter was sawing rock crystal with a hand-saw.
1841 Penny Cycl. XX. 476/2 The ripping-saw, half-ripper, hand-saw..are saws for the use of one person.
a1884 E. H. Knight Pract. Dict. Mech. Suppl. 410/2 Grafter, a fine-toothed, pointed, narrow-bladed, hand-saw, used in sawing off limbs and stocks for the insertion of grafts.
1909 Grocery Catal. (T. Eaton & Co.) 26/2 Three-in-One Hand Saw..combining in one tool a saw, 2 ft. rule and square.
1944 J. Millar in R. Greenhalgh Pract. Builder x. 340/2 The saws used for softer freestones are the cross-cut saw, the hand saw, and the fillet saw.
2009 Guardian 11 July (Work section) 4/5 The wood is cut to its basic shape on the handsaw.
Phrases
Contrasted with hawk n.1 as being something obviously different; esp. in (not) to know (also tell) a hawk from a handsaw: to be knowledgeable and competent (or ignorant and incompetent). [Apparently first used by Shakespeare (see quot. 1604). In this quot. handsaw has often been interpreted as either a folk-etymological alteration or a variant (with excrescent -d- ) of heronshaw n. (see to know a hawk from a hernshaw at heronshaw n. Phrases, and compare discussion at that entry). Other conjectures take hawk to show a different meaning here, e.g. denoting a plasterer's tool (hawk n.3, although this is first attested considerably later). See further the discussions in the Arden edition of Hamlet by H. Jenkins (1982) 473–4 and in H. Kökeritz ‘Five Shakespeare Notes’ in Rev. Eng. Stud. (1947) 23 311–20. Although the emendation of handsaw to heronshaw is regarded as plausible by many modern editors of Shakespeare, it has also been pointed out that the conceptual dissimilarity of the two noun elements need not exclude the possibility that handsaw denotes something else than a bird; compare e.g. the phrases containing chalk and cheese at chalk n. 6a.]
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1604 W. Shakespeare Hamlet ii. ii. 381 I am but mad North North west; when the wind is Southerly, I knowe a Hauke, from a hand saw.
1677 T. D'Urfey Fond Husband ii. iii. 19 He's a pretty spruce Fellow, Madam, and ifack knows a Hawk from a Handsaw, as the saying is.
1703 S. Centlivre Stolen Heiress iii. 41 San. He knows not a Hawk from a Handsaw. Fran. The Man's distracted, Sir.
1748 L. Pilkington Mem. II. 106 Finding when the Wind was in one particular Point, I was as wise as Hamlet, and knew a Hawk from a Handsaw.
1833 S. Smith Life & Writings Major Jack Downing 241 The great mass of them were about as much like the original letters, as a hawk is like a hand-saw.
1840 W. G. Simms Border Beagles I. viii. 127 A fellow wise enough to speak only upon cues..; and one who..can always ‘tell a hawk from a handsaw’.
1886 Harper's Mag. June 55/1 Capps knew a hawk from a handsaw when it came to talking about ‘moonshine’ whiskey.
1929 Times 9 Nov. 10/2 The famous jazz opera..was declared..to be sorry stuff and its jazz as little like the real thing as a hawk is like a handsaw.
1963 L. Kochan Struggle for Germany iii. 37 The Soviets knew a hawk from a handsaw, especially where foreign loans were concerned.
1998 B. Crick Ess. Citizenship (2000) x. 187 Too many literary editors do not know a hawk from a handsaw.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2013; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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