buzz saw

plural buzz saws · alternative buzz-saw

1. A powerful, noisy, motorized saw, typically having a rotary blade with large teeth, sometimes portable and sometimes mounted into a table.

   The American mind exasperated the European as a buzz-saw might exasperate a pine forest.

   1905, Henry Adams, chapter 12, in The Education of Henry Adams

   3 more examples

   The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood

   1916, Robert Frost, Out, Out–

   A population in full song can exceed 100 decibels, roughly the level of a circular buzz saw at full throttle.

   1987 May 25, David Brand, “Tick, Buzz, It's That Time Again Locusts?”, in Time, retrieved 27 May 2014

   [T]hree inmates were freed today by accomplices who descended on a prison in central France in a helicopter, then used a buzz saw to rip through security netting.

   2003 April 14, John Tagliabue, “Another Daring Jailbreak Embarrasses French Government”, in New York Times, retrieved 27 May 2014

   Synonyms: circular saw

2. A type of noisemaker in the form of a spinning disc spun on an untwisting string like a whirligig.