Illustration of adze
adze
noun
ˈadz 
variants or less commonly adz
: a cutting tool that has a thin arched blade set at right angles to the handle and is used chiefly for shaping wood
Example Sentences
Recent Examples on the Web It’s as if she’s been carved like an archetypal totem, but with matte and glossy house paint, charcoal and oil paint on canvas rather than with a chisel or an adze from stone or wood. 
Los Angeles Times, 31 May 2022 Ghoulish revenants prey upon the living everywhere from Australia (yara-ma-yha-who) to West Africa (obayifo, adze and sasabonsam) to South America (soucouyant and peuchen). Roy Schwartz, CNN, 2 Apr. 2022 The pallets with firefighting equipment—chainsaws, shovels, beaters, Pulaskis (combination ax-adze tools)—are dropping into the landing zone. Mark Jenkins, National Geographic, 12 June 2019 Next to that, also at a 90 degree angle to the shaft, is an adze, a pear-sized steel point that can puncture the most solid walls and doors. Sean Flynn, Esquire, 9 Mar. 2017 Boxley uses a handcrafted adze, designed with the aid of his grandfather. Ron Judd, The Seattle Times, 22 June 2017 At Schöneck, the lower leg bones of most of the young men showed a nearly identical pattern of blunt force breakage probably made by the Neolithic weapon of choice, the ax-like adze. Hillary Waterman, Discover Magazine, 10 Mar. 2017 See More
Los Angeles Times, 31 May 2022 Ghoulish revenants prey upon the living everywhere from Australia (yara-ma-yha-who) to West Africa (obayifo, adze and sasabonsam) to South America (soucouyant and peuchen). Roy Schwartz, CNN, 2 Apr. 2022 The pallets with firefighting equipment—chainsaws, shovels, beaters, Pulaskis (combination ax-adze tools)—are dropping into the landing zone. Mark Jenkins, National Geographic, 12 June 2019 Next to that, also at a 90 degree angle to the shaft, is an adze, a pear-sized steel point that can puncture the most solid walls and doors. Sean Flynn, Esquire, 9 Mar. 2017 Boxley uses a handcrafted adze, designed with the aid of his grandfather. Ron Judd, The Seattle Times, 22 June 2017 At Schöneck, the lower leg bones of most of the young men showed a nearly identical pattern of blunt force breakage probably made by the Neolithic weapon of choice, the ax-like adze. Hillary Waterman, Discover Magazine, 10 Mar. 2017 See More Word History
Etymology
Middle English adse, adese, going back to Old English adesa, of obscure origin
Note: There are no forms directly comparable to Old English adesa in Germanic. See the lengthy but inconclusive discussion of the word in Anatoly Liberman, An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction (University of Minnesota Press, 2008), pp. 1-3.
First Known Use
before the 12th century, in the meaning defined above
Kids Definition
adze
noun
variants also adz
ˈadz
plural adzes
: a cutting tool that has a thin curved blade at right angles to the handle and is used for shaping wood