break-axe

English

Etymology

Calque of Spanish quebracho

Noun

break-axe (countable and uncountable, plural break-axes)

1. A South American hardwood, Sloanea jamaicensis
   • 1832, The Juvenile Miscellany, page 207:

     For strength and hardness, for towering height and size, the break-axe may be called the king of the Cuba forest.

   • 1853, James Dunwoody Brownson De Bow, R. G. Barnwell, Edwin Bell, Debow's Review - Volume 14, page 100:

     The quiebra hacha is the celerated break-axe tree, noted for its durability.

   • 1948, Joseph Earle Stevens, A Tale of two trees: Logwood & Quebracho, page 41:

     Quebracho wood derives its name from two Spanish words, "quebrar" to break and "hache" an axe, and this break-axe wood is one of the heaviest and hardest known, weighing some 85 pounds to the cubic foot, or over l/3 more than water, and "playing ducks and drakes" with axes, saws and other cutting tools.

References

• Sloanea+jamaicensis at The Plant List