Etymology

scramasax

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Today it means: Per the prefix, assumed to have been a weaponized (offensive) form of sax (a type of machete (broadly speaking) used by the early medieval Germanic tribes such as the Anglo-Saxons, Franks and the Norse, etc); a large combat knife. Full definition →

Old English scramasax
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The story

  1. Old English · borrowed fromscramasax
  2. English todayscramasax

Borrowed from Old English scramasax, compound of scrama (“causing injury?”) + sax (“machete type knife”). The exact meaning of scrama is unclear, but cognates have the sense “(cut) wound, scratch, scar” (see Old Norse skráma, German Schramme), likely related to the root of scar (“cut mark”), score (“cut groove”), Old Norse skora (“scoring, notching”), Old Norse skǽra (“cutting, slicing”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.