poleaxe
/ˈpəʊlaks
/(US also poleax)
noun
1 another term for battleaxe (sense 1).Both demons wore heavy, dark armour, covered in spikes, and brandished long poleaxes....
- After getting hit a few times with the poleaxe and half-moon blades, she'd taken out her opponents in under five minutes, the second in less than three.
1.1A short-handled axe with a spike at the back, formerly used in naval warfare for boarding, resisting boarders, and cutting ropes.
1.2A butcher’s axe with a hammer head at the back, used to slaughter animals.
verb [with object]
1Hit, kill, or knock down with or as if with a poleaxe: the tigress had fallen to my bullet as if poleaxed...
- The missile hit him full on the knee, poleaxing him to the ground, and ricocheted into the river.
- If a rugby player or boxer had spent almost 15 minutes unconscious after a taking a heavy tackle or being poleaxed by a crushing right hook, the minimum rest period would be a month.
- Having poleaxed the thug, she sauntered off, leaving the detail of his detainment to two remarkably civic-minded passers-by.
1.1Cause great shock to: I was poleaxed by this revelation...
- I was just stunned by how the gaps in his answers didn't seem like he was thinking, but that he was poleaxed.
- Colonel Anderson looked like he'd been poleaxed when he heard you laugh for the first time, when you slipped and I barely caught you that time.
Origin
Middle English: related to Middle Dutch pol(l)aex, Middle Low German pol(l)exe (see poll, axe). The change in the first syllable was due to association with pole1; the first element poll- may have referred to a special head of the axe or to the head of an enemy.