Saxonn.adj.

a. One of a Germanic people which in the early centuries of the Christian era dwelt in a region near the mouth of the Elbe, and of which one portion, distinguished as Anglo-Saxons (see Anglo-Saxon n. and adj.) conquered and occupied certain parts of South Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries, while the other, the Old Saxons (see Old Saxon n.) remained in continental Europe. Often, like Anglo-Saxon, applied indiscriminately to all the Germanic peoples that settled in Britain. Also, an Englishman who is presumed to be descended from this people.

b. In modern use spec. (primarily as the term used by Celtic speakers). An Englishman as distinct from a Welshman or Irishman, a Lowland Scot as distinct from a Highlander. Cf. Sassenach adj. and n. Also, an Englishman as distinct from a ‘Latin’.

a. Of or belonging to the Saxons (see A. 1). Formerly often used (like Anglo-Saxon) as the distinctive epithet of the Old English language, and of books written in it, and of the period of English history between the conquest of Britain by the Saxons, Angles, and Jutes, and the Norman Conquest. †Saxon Angles = Anglo-Saxons.

b. Used to denote the element of the English tongue which is derived from Anglo-Saxon. †Saxon-English adj. See also English-Saxon adj.

c. Used (primarily by Celtic speakers: see A. 1b) for ‘English’ in contradistinction to Welsh and Irish or Gaelic. Also, in wider sense, applied, like Anglo-Saxon, to the people of England and of the other English-speaking communities, chiefly in contradistinction to ‘Latin’.

d. Architecture. Used to designate the special variety of Romanesque architecture used in England in the ‘Saxon period’. (Formerly often misapplied to early Norman buildings.)

a. Of or belonging to Saxony in its modern German sense. (See A. 3.)

b. Saxon blue = Saxony blue n. at Saxony n. 2. Saxon green: cobalt green.