1 (often in compounds) a tool that has a long blade with sharp points (called TEETH) along one of its edges. A saw is moved backwards and forwards by hand or driven by electricity and is used for cutting wood or metal.
seealsoCHAINSAW, CIRCULARSAW, HACKSAW, HANDSAW, JIGSAW
2 (old-fashioned) a short phrase or sentence that states a general truth about life or gives advice
verb (sawed, sawn ) (AmE also sawed, sawed)
1 to use a saw to cut sth:
[V] The workmen sawed and hammered all day. * He accidentally sawed through a cable. * [VN] She sawed the plank in half.
2 ~ (away) (at sth) to move sth backwards and forwards on sth as if using a saw:
[V] She sawed away at her violin. * He was sawing energetically at a loaf of bread. [also VN]
PHRASALVERBS
saw sth<->down to cut sth and bring it to the ground using a saw:
The tree had to be sawn down.
saw sth<->off
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for saw is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is saw a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, saw is tagged as noun.
Does saw appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — saw appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.