hatchet

noun

1. A small, light axe with a short handle; a tomahawk.

   ““It must be admitted, Nick, you are a very literal logician—‘dog won't eat dog,’ is our English saying. Still the Yankee will fight the Yengeese, it would seem. In a word, the Great Father, in England, has raised the hatchet against his American children.””

   “Buried was the bloody hatchet, / Buried was the dreadful war-club, / Buried were all warlike weapons, / And the war-cry was forgotten.”

   “The fellow was armed with a stone-shod spear, a stone knife and a hatchet. In his black hair were several gay-colored feathers.”

2. (figuratively)Belligerence, animosity; harsh criticism.

   “to bury the hatchet”

   “hatchet job”

   ““Dat true as missionary! What a soldier do, cap'in, if so much peace? Warrior love a war-path.” “I wish it were not so, Nick. But my hatchet is buried, I hope, for ever.””

   “The savagery with which Michael Hofmann can wield a hatchet has earned him unlikely fans outside the literary circuit. A recent issue of Viz ran a cartoon of the critic, poet and translator urinating all over a phone booth, while two donnish FR Leavis types nodded appreciatively from a safe distance.”

verb

1. (transitive)To cut with a hatchet.