machete

Etymology

It is borrowed from Spanish machete (“a chopping knife”),^[2][3][4][5] recorded in Spanish from 1550.^[2] The Spanish word is probably a diminutive, with the suffix -ete, of macho (“sledgehammer”),^[2][3][5][6] which is probably an alteration of mazo (“club”),^[2][3][5] itself according to Barnhart a dialect variant of maza (“mallet”), from Vulgar Latin *mattea (“war club”), the source of mace.^[6][3][5] Another explanation, given by Klein, Weekley and the Shorter Oxford, traces macho to Latin marculus (“small hammer”), a diminutive of marcus (“hammer”),^[7][8][9][3] from a base parallel to that of malleus (“hammer”), the source of mallet.^[3][7] The sense of a small guitar follows Portuguese machete.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A broad, heavy knife or cutlass used as a tool or a weapon in Central America and the Caribbean: 1575, in a narrative printed in Hakluyt's Principall Navigations (1589).^[2][4] Etymonline dates the word to the 1590s, in the pseudo-Spanish form macheto,^[3] and Collins also gives macheto as the 16th-century form.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The word came into English as the name of the knife the Spanish used in the Americas, both as a weapon and as a tool,^[3][2] and Merriam-Webster still describes it as used especially in South America and the West Indies for cutting cane and clearing paths.^[4] Barnhart records the spelling machete in American English from 1832.^[6] In 1850 the word was also used in English for a small, usually four-stringed guitar of Portugal and Madeira, the forerunner of the ukulele, after the Portuguese word.^[2][4] A verb, to cut with a machete, and so to wound or kill with one, followed in 1874.^[2]

Timeline

• 1575 – a broad, heavy knife used as a tool or a weapon.^[2][4] Etymonline dates the form macheto to the 1590s.^[3]
• 1832 – the spelling machete in American English.^[6]
• 1850 – a small four-stringed guitar of Portugal and Madeira.^[2]
• 1874 – verb, to cut, or to wound or kill, with a machete.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large, heavy knife with a broad blade, used for cutting sugar cane and clearing paths through vegetation, or as a weapon: The guide hacked a trail through the undergrowth with his machete.^[10][4][2]
2. A small four-stringed Portuguese guitar, the forerunner of the ukulele.^[4][2]

Verb

1. To cut or hack with a machete, or to wound or kill with one.^[2]

Related words

• mace
• mallet

Usage notes

Collins and Merriam-Webster also record the anglicized spelling matchet.^[10][4][9] The OED notes that the early English forms were stressed on the second syllable; a pronunciation stressed on the first syllable, perhaps influenced by hatchet, appeared in the early 19th century and is still usual in Jamaica and the Bahamas, while the three-syllable pronunciation came from American usage in the late 19th century, and the sh sound for ch probably imitates French.^[2]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
9. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins