saw
noun · verb
Form of see , past tense of see.
Simple meaning
Hand tool having a toothed blade for cutting.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
sawIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsɔ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Hand tool having a toothed blade for cutting
A power tool for cutting wood
A tool with a toothed blade used for cutting hard substances, in particular wood or metal.
Such a tool with an abrasive coating instead of teeth.
A musical saw.
A sawtooth wave.
verb
past tense of see
Perceive by sight or have the power to perceive by sight
“You have to be a good observer to see all the details.”
past tense of see
Perceive (an idea or situation) mentally
intransitive
To make a motion back and forth similar to cutting something with a saw.
transitive
To form or produce (something) by cutting with a saw.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner (estimated)
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
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Common Patterns and Combinations
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Perceive by sight or have the power to perceive by sight.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A handsaw with a narrow triangular blade for cutting curves.
A power saw that has a steel disk with cutting teeth on the periphery.
A saw used with one hand for cutting wood.
Saw used with one hand for cutting metal.
A handsaw that is stiffened by metal reinforcement along the upper edge.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.