Forms: 1 adesa (eadesa), 2–4 adese, 5 adse, 6 adys, 6–7 addis, addice, addes, adds, ads, (7 atch), 8– adz, adze. [Origin of OE. adesa unknown.] A carpenter’s or cooper’s tool, like an ax with the blade set at right angles to the handle and curving inwards towards it; used for cutting or slicing away the surface of wood.
c. 880. K. Ælfred, Bæda, IV. 3. He … bær him æcse and adesan on handa.
11th c. Vocab. (in Wright 84), Ascia, Adesa.
1388. Wyclif, Is. xliv. 13. A carpenter stretchide forth a reule, he fourmyde it with an adese.
c. 1420. Pallad. on Husb., I. 1161. Set rakes, crookes, adses, and bycornes.
a. 1500. Debate of Carp. Tools, 53, in Hazl., E. P. P., I. 8. To hym then seyd the adys, And seyd; ȝe, sir, god glades.
1530. Palsgr., 193/1. Addis a coupers instrument. Dolovere.
1552. Huloet, Addice, cowpers instrumente. Harpago.
1578. R. Scot, Perfite Platf. of Hoppe Gard., 27. Prepare a toole af yron fashioned somewhat lyke to a Coopers Addes.
1580. Tusser, Husb., xvii. 9. An ax and a nads, to make troffe for thy hogs. [Cf. a nother.]
1594. Nashe, Vnfort. Trav., 20. Some had barres of yron … some wood-kniues, some addises for their weapons.
1598. Lyly, Mother Bombie, IV. ii. 128. I had thought I had rode upon addices between this & Canterbury.
1611. Cotgr., Doloire, a (Coopers) ax, or addis.
1665. Pepys, Diary (1879), III. 254. A yew tree … which upon cutting with an addes, we found to be rather harder than the living tree is.
1681. R. Knox, Hist. Rel. Ceylon (1817), 174. They have also … axes, bills, houghs, atches, chissels, and other tools.
1697. Dampier, Voy. (1729), I. 332. They can take it out of the Helve, and by turning it make an Adds of it.
1703. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., 119. The Adz … hath its Blade made thin, and somewhat arching.
1772–84. Cook, Voy. (1790), I. 60. Captain Cook having produced an iron adze.
1869. Lubbock, Prehist. Times, xiii. 459. The stone axes, or rather adzes, were of various sizes.
1877. Bryant, Odyss., V. 287. A polished adze she gave him next.
Comb. adze-like a.
1859. R. F. Burton, Centr. Afr., in Jrnl. R. G. S., XXIX. 396. It is like a child’s plaything, with an adze-like iron.
1865. Lubbock, Prehist. Times, 452. The adze-like hatchets of the South Sea Islanders.
