Saxon

plural Saxons

1. A member of an ancient West Germanic tribe that lived at the eastern North Sea coast and south of it.

   Kenett states that the military works still known by the name of Tadmarten Camp and Hook-Norton Barrow were cast up at this time ; the former, large and round, is judged to be a fortification of the Danes, and the latter, being smaller and rather a quinquangle than a square, of the Saxons.

   1881, John Kirby Hedges, The history of Wallingford, volume 1, page 170

2. A native or inhabitant of Saxony, Germany.

   Not everyone from the former GDR states are Saxons – and they do not all speak Saxon, […]

   2014, Marco Polo, Dresden Marco Polo Guide, →ISBN, page 21

   3 more examples

   [...] in West Germany Saxony and Saxons became synonymous with Ulbricht's Communist regime, [...]

   2002, Jonathan Grix, Paul Cooke, East German distinctiveness in a unified Germany, page 142

   The film taught that socialist competition, through encouraging the collaboration of both men and women and Saxons and Berliners, could overcome the natural antagonism between male industrial mass production and female fashion.

   2005, Judd Stitziel, Fashioning socialism: clothing, politics, and consumer culture, page 69

   Dealing with people there was different from the way I dealt with Saxons, Berliners and others back in Leipzig.

   2008, Eckbert Schulz-Schomburgk, From Leipzig to Venezuela, page 40

3. IrelandWalespoeticAn English/British person.

   Then came the call to arms, love, the heather was aflame / Down from the silent mountains, the Saxon strangers came.

   1973, Sean McCarthy, “Shanagolden”

4. USdatedrareuncountablemediaA size of type between German and Norse, 2-point type.
5. A kind of rapidly spinning ground-based firework.

1. The language of the ancient Saxons.
2. Upper Saxon, a dialect of modern High German spoken in Saxony.

   Not everyone from the former GDR states are Saxons – and they do not all speak Saxon, […]

   2014, Marco Polo, Dresden Marco Polo Guide, →ISBN, page 21

   1 more example

   But does this mean that Germans nowadays speak Saxon? Far from it, in fact; Saxon is the most widely despised dialect in Germany, by a wide margin.

   2014, Gaston Dorren, Lingo: A Language Spotter's Guide to Europe, →ISBN

3. A surname.
4. A male given name transferred from the surname, of modern usage or directly from the noun Saxon.
5. A place name:
   1. A census-designated place in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, United States.
   2. An unincorporated community in Raleigh County, West Virginia, United States.
   3. A town and census-designated place therein, in Iron County, Wisconsin, United States.
   4. A municipality in Martigny district, Valais canton, Switzerland.

comparative more Saxon · superlative most Saxon

1. Of, relating to, or characteristic of the Saxons.

   But his bitch queen was Saxon to the bone and her legacy showed in the sons that Vortigern bred off her. Katigern Minor might be young, but he has become what his grandfather never was – more Saxon than Celt.

   2009, M. K. Hume, King Arthur: Dragon’s Child, London: Headline Review, →ISBN, page 340

   1 more example

   Eadyth managed to make one of her beekeeping veils into a bridal veil hanging from a circlet of Drifa’s flowers. All this attire was more Saxon than Norse. So she wore her hair in one long braid, Viking style, and at her shoulder was a brooch in a writhing, intertwined animal design. / Her sisters looked just as lovely in their bright gowns, Tyra’s Saxon style, but the others pure Viking.

   2010, Sandra Hill, Viking in Love, New York, N.Y.: Avon, →ISBN, page 353

2. Of, from or relating to Saxony, Germany.
3. Of, relating to, or characteristic of the Saxon language.
4. IrelandWalespoeticOf, relating to, or characteristic of England, typically as opposed to a Celtic nationality.

   He was a large, very Saxon type of man; that is to say, an English one, having shed the vices and cruelties and developed the patience and cool-headedness.

   1987, Idries Shah, Adventures, Facts and Fantasy in Darkest England, London: The Octagon Press, →ISBN, page 325