Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🪚 To cut timber 😴 To snore loudly
to saw wood

to saw wood

1 2.6
Cut wood with a saw
  • phrasal verb
translation icon : cortar madera
  • By noon, he has sawed the wood for the edges and rail; I've cleared the stump, and we've laid most of the floorboards.

Examples

  • Before assembling the furniture, we must saw the wood to the correct dimensions.

  • There is something about that act of very methodically saw in the wood that says something about the mindset of cash.

  • Just keeping warm took hours every day, not only tending the fires, but sawing and splitting wood.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • That afternoon I stood by the fence while the fifth- and sixth-grade boys sawed and chopped the wood.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • Out in the yard, the parachutist called Mike had set up a makeshift workbench and was sawing pieces of wood and then hammering them together.

    Fiction book (2001)

  • The carpentry class taught us how to saw wood safely and accurately.

  • He needs to saw the wood into smaller pieces for the project.

Synonyms

to jigsaw
vsto saw wood
1 4.6

To cut shapes in wood with a small electric saw

is broader and used for cutting boards and timber with larger toothed tools
to woodchopping
vsto saw wood
3.2

To cut wood into smaller pieces using an axe or saw

focuses on cutting boards or timber with a toothed tool for building

Antonyms

to assemble
169 2.9

To put parts together to make something like a machine or toy

How Vigorous

to hack
55 4.7
to chop
193 1.0
to saw wood
1 2.6
to cut
∞ 1.0
to slice
203 1.0

Surface Forms

saw wood infinitive
sawing wood present participle
saws wood third person singular
sawed wood past
sawed wood past participle

Morphology

saw + wood

The expression relies on a sound-based metaphor — the noise of snoring is likened to the rasping sound of sawing wood — so there is a loose, perceivable link to the constituents 'saw' and 'wood'. However this metaphorical mapping is not a standard compositional meaning and is culturally specific and informal, so a B1 learner who only knows the literal words would be unlikely to predict 'to snore loudly' without prior exposure.

Etymology

The verb saw wood paints a clear picture: someone using a saw to cut wood into boards, with chips and sawdust flying. So it means 'to cut timber or wooden boards'.