break-axe
English
Etymology
Calque of Spanish quebracho
Noun
break-axe (countable and uncountable, plural break-axes)
- A South American hardwood, Sloanea jamaicensis
- 1832, The Juvenile Miscellany, page 207:
- For strength and hardness, for towering height and size, the break-axe may be called the king of the Cuba forest.
- 1853, James Dunwoody Brownson De Bow, R. G. Barnwell, Edwin Bell, Debow's Review - Volume 14, page 100:
- The quiebra hacha is the celerated break-axe tree, noted for its durability.
- 1948, Joseph Earle Stevens, A Tale of two trees: Logwood & Quebracho, page 41:
- Quebracho wood derives its name from two Spanish words, "quebrar" to break and "hache" an axe, and this break-axe wood is one of the heaviest and hardest known, weighing some 85 pounds to the cubic foot, or over l/3 more than water, and "playing ducks and drakes" with axes, saws and other cutting tools.
References
- Sloanea+jamaicensis at The Plant List