An ax with a broad head, used for hewing timber, and formerly in war.
1352. Minot, Poems (1825), 29. To batail … With brade ax, and with bowes bent.
c. 1400. Epiph., 737 (Turnb., 1843). Summe had twybyll, brodax, and nawger.
c. 1450. Gloss. Garlande, in Wright, Voc., 137. Dolabra, (gloss.) brode axe.
1530. Palsgr., 201/2. Broode axe, hache large.
1855. W. Sargent, Braddock’s Exped., 84. A roof of puncheons, rudely shaped with the broad-axe.
1876. Bancroft, Hist. U.S., III. xvi. 494. They … split open his doors with broad-axes.
