The ancient battle-ax had sometimes a double edge.

* The word is used adjectively or in combination; as, axhead or ax head; ax helve; ax handle; ax shaft; ax-shaped; axlike.

This word was originally spelt with e, axe; and so also was nearly every corresponding word of one syllable: as, flaxe, taxe, waxe, sixe, mixe, pixe, oxe, fluxe, etc. This superfluous e is not dropped; so that, in more than a hundred words ending in x, no one thinks of retaining the e except in axe. Analogy requires its exclusion here.

"The spelling ax is better on every ground, of etymology, phonology, and analogy, than axe, which has of late become prevalent." New English Dict. (Murray).

* This word is from Saxon, and is as old as the English language. Formerly it was in good use, but now is regarded as a vulgarism. It is still dialectic in England, and is sometimes heard among the uneducated in the United States. "And Pilate axide him, Art thou king of Jewis?" "Or if he axea fish." Wyclif. 'bdThe king axed after your Grace's welfare." Pegge.