See take an axe to on Wiktionary
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "takes an axe to",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "taking an axe to",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "took an axe to",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "taken an axe to",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "<,,took,taken>"
},
"expansion": "take an axe to (third-person singular simple present takes an axe to, present participle taking an axe to, simple past took an axe to, past participle taken an axe to)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "71 29",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "51 49",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English links with manual fragments",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "69 31",
"kind": "other",
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},
{
"_dis": "81 19",
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}
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
67,
81
]
],
"text": "How much you wanna bet on whether they're hatching secret plans to take an axe to the entire Social Security system?",
"type": "example"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To boldly demolish, delete, or discontinue (something)."
],
"id": "en-take_an_axe_to-en-verb-vNV14r6r",
"links": [
[
"demolish",
"demolish"
],
[
"delete",
"delete"
],
[
"discontinue",
"discontinue"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To boldly demolish, delete, or discontinue (something)."
],
"related": [
{
"_dis1": "58 42",
"word": "chainsaw consultant"
},
{
"_dis1": "58 42",
"word": "chopping block"
},
{
"_dis1": "58 42",
"word": "dead wood"
},
{
"_dis1": "58 42",
"word": "deadwood"
},
{
"_dis1": "58 42",
"word": "hatchet job"
},
{
"_dis1": "58 42",
"word": "slash"
},
{
"_dis1": "58 42",
"word": "take up the hatchet"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
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"name": "&lit not valid pagename",
"parents": [],
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{
"_dis": "51 49",
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{
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48,
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],
"text": "The firefighters were not messing around — they took an axe to the locked door.",
"type": "example"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: to boldly and forcefully demolish, cut up, cut down, etc."
],
"id": "en-take_an_axe_to-en-verb-en:literal",
"links": [
[
"demolish",
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],
[
"cut up",
"cut up"
],
[
"cut down",
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]
],
"senseid": [
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]
}
],
"word": "take an axe to"
}
{
"categories": [
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"English lemmas",
"English links with manual fragments",
"English multiword terms",
"English verbs",
"Pages with 1 entry",
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],
"forms": [
{
"form": "takes an axe to",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
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]
},
{
"form": "taking an axe to",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "took an axe to",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "taken an axe to",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "<,,took,taken>"
},
"expansion": "take an axe to (third-person singular simple present takes an axe to, present participle taking an axe to, simple past took an axe to, past participle taken an axe to)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"word": "chainsaw consultant"
},
{
"word": "chopping block"
},
{
"word": "dead wood"
},
{
"word": "deadwood"
},
{
"word": "hatchet job"
},
{
"word": "slash"
},
{
"word": "take up the hatchet"
}
],
"senses": [
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"categories": [
"English idioms",
"English terms with usage examples"
],
"examples": [
{
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67,
81
]
],
"text": "How much you wanna bet on whether they're hatching secret plans to take an axe to the entire Social Security system?",
"type": "example"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To boldly demolish, delete, or discontinue (something)."
],
"links": [
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"demolish",
"demolish"
],
[
"delete",
"delete"
],
[
"discontinue",
"discontinue"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To boldly demolish, delete, or discontinue (something)."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"&lit not valid pagename",
"English terms with usage examples"
],
"examples": [
{
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48,
62
]
],
"text": "The firefighters were not messing around — they took an axe to the locked door.",
"type": "example"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: to boldly and forcefully demolish, cut up, cut down, etc."
],
"links": [
[
"demolish",
"demolish"
],
[
"cut up",
"cut up"
],
[
"cut down",
"cut down"
]
],
"senseid": [
"en:literal"
]
}
],
"word": "take an axe to"
}
Download raw JSONL data for take an axe to meaning in All languages combined (2.0kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-10-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-09-02 using wiktextract (1a05e46 and e3d6d4e). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.