bury the hatchet, to

bury the hatchet

1. To make peace with someone. Can you please bury the hatchet and make up with your sister already? I can't take the constant fighting.2. slang To accidentally leave medical instruments inside a patient after surgery. The surgeons have a strict protocol to avoid burying the hatchet, so to speak.See also: bury, hatchet

bury the hatchet

Fig. to make peace. Let's stop arguing and bury the hatchet. Tom and I buried the hatchet and we are good friends now.See also: bury, hatchet

bury the hatchet

Make peace; settle one's differences. For example, Toward the end of the year, the roommates finally decided to bury the hatchet. Although some believe this term comes from a Native American custom for declaring peace between warring tribes, others say it comes from hang up one's hatchet, a term dating from the early 1300s (well before Columbus landed in the New World). The word bury replaced hang up in the 1700s. See also: bury, hatchet

bury the hatchet

When people who have argued bury the hatchet, they agree to forget their argument and become friends again. Note: A hatchet is a small axe. They had finally buried the hatchet after their falling-out. Note: In the past, when Native American tribes made peace after fighting each other, it was traditional for each tribe to bury a tomahawk or small axe, as a sign of peace. See also: bury, hatchet

bury the hatchet

end a quarrel or conflict and become friendly. This expression makes reference to a Native American custom of burying a hatchet or tomahawk to mark the conclusion of a peace treaty.See also: bury, hatchet

ˌbury the ˈhatchet

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ˌbury your ˈdifferences

(of two people or groups) agree to forget past disagreements and be friends again: I’ve said I’m prepared to bury the hatchet, but John says he won’t forgive me for what happened.When Native Americans agreed to end fighting and begin a period of peace they held a ceremony in which they buried a hatchet or tomahawk (= a small axe).See also: bury, hatchet

bury the hatchet

1. tv. to make peace. (From an alleged American Indian practice.) I’m sorry. Let’s stop arguing and bury the hatchet. 2. tv. to leave surgical instruments in the patient. (Medical.) The idea that a doctor would bury the hatchet is a very old joke. See also: bury, hatchet

bury the hatchet

To stop fighting; resolve a quarrel.See also: bury, hatchet

bury the hatchet, to

To make peace or call a truce. Some North American Indian tribes declared peace by burying a tomahawk, a custom described by Samuel Sewell in 1680 and referred to again in subsequent accounts of the American colonies. The term appears in Longfellow’s famous poem, “Hiawatha,” and by the end of the nineteenth century was a cliché for peacemaking on both sides of the Atlantic. See also: bury

bury the hatchet

To make peace, to settle differences. The phrase comes from the practice among native American and Canadian tribes literally to bury a war axe at the end of hostilities. An 1680 report describes European colonists in what became New England: “Meeting wth ye Sachem [the tribal leaders] the[y] came to an agreemt and buried two Axes in ye Ground; which ceremony to them is more significant & binding than all Articles of Peace . . .”See also: bury, hatchet