[AS.] An instrument of steel or iron, with a steel edge or blade, for felling trees, hewing timber, chopping and splitting wood, etc. The handle of an axe is called the helve, the thick metal part the head, and the hole for the handle the eye, and the handle is so fixed in the eye as to be in the same plane with the blade. The carpenter's axe for hewing timber is heavier than the chopping axe, and has a broader and thinner blade and a shorter handle.