axe

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
axe /aks/ (US also ax)

▶noun

• 1 a heavy-bladed tool used for chopping wood.

• 2 (the axe) cost-cutting action, especially redundancy: thirty staff are facing the axe.

• 3 informal a guitar or (in jazz) a saxophone.

▶verb

• 1 dismiss or cancel suddenly and ruthlessly.

• 2 cut or strike with an axe.

– phrases
have an axe to grind have a private reason for doing something.

– origin OE æx, of Gmc origin.