Etymology

hatchet

H4A1T1C3H4E1T1

Today it means: A small, light axe with a short handle; a tomahawk. Full definition →

Middle English hachet ← Old French hachete ← Vulgar Latin *happia
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*kop-“to strike, to beat”
  2. Proto-Germanic · derived from*hapjǭ
  3. Frankish · derived from*happjā
  4. Vulgar Latin · derived from*happia
  5. Old French · derived fromhachete
  6. Middle English · inherited fromhachet
  7. English todayhatchet

From Middle English hachet, a borrowing from Old French hachete, diminutive of hache (“axe”), from Vulgar Latin *happia, from Frankish *happjā, from Proto-Germanic *hapjǭ, *habjǭ (“knife”), from Proto-Indo-European *kop- (“to strike, to beat”). Cognate with Old High German happa, heppa, habba (“reaper, sickle”), German Hippe (“billhook”), Dutch heep, hiep (“billhook”), and Ancient Greek κοπίς (kopís). Mostly displaced native Old English handæx, whence Modern English hand axe.

Words from the same roots

Frankish*happjā all →

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Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.