🪚 To cut timber 😴 To snore loudly

to saw wood

9.0

Make loud snoring noises while sleeping

idiom

Informal

: roncar

My grandfather used to saw wood so loudly that we could hear him from the next room.

Examples

If you hear someone sawing wood at the campsite tonight, it's probably just Jim snoring again.
He was so tired after the hike that he immediately fell asleep and started to saw wood.
He saw wood all night!
Did you hear him saw wood during the movie?
My brother snores so loudly that it sounds like he's sawing wood all night.
When camping, it's hard to sleep if someone starts to saw wood nearby.
She was so exhausted that she fell asleep and began to saw wood within minutes.

Synonyms

to snore

vsto saw wood

88 1.0

To breathe noisily through the nose or mouth while asleep

is informal and emphasizes loud noisy sleeping rather than neutral breathing

to saw logs

vsto saw wood

Informal

1 8.6

To make loud breathing noises while sleeping

has the same informal meaning but uses a different colloquial phrasing

Antonyms

to be quiet

231 1.0

To stop making noise or talking

How Loud

to saw wood

Informal

9.0

to snore

88 1.0

to breathe

∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

saw wood infinitive

sawed wood past

sawed wood past participle

sawing wood present participle

saw woods third person singular

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 informal phrase saw wood comes from a sound image: a loud sleeper makes a steady, back-and-forth noise like a saw cutting wood. That's why people say it when they mean 'to snore loudly'.