• (RP) enPR: sô, IPA: /sɔː/
• (America) enPR: sô, IPA: /sɔ/
• (cot-caught) enPR: sä, IPA: /sɑː/

  (idiosyncratic, past tense of 'see') IPA: /sɑːl/

saw (plural saws)

1. A tool with a toothed blade used for cutting hard substances, in particular wood or metal
2. A musical saw.
3. A sawtooth wave.

• French: scie
• German: Säge
• Italian: sega
• Portuguese: serra, serrote
• Russian: пила́
• Spanish: sierra

saw (saws, present participle sawing; past sawed, past participle sawed)

1. (transitive) To cut (something) with a saw.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981 ↗, Hebrews 11:37 ↗:

   They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented;

2. (intransitive) To make a motion back and forth similar to cutting something with a saw.

   The fiddler sawed away at his instrument.

3. (intransitive) To be cut with a saw.

   The timber saws smoothly.

4. (transitive) To form or produce (something) by cutting with a saw.

   to saw boards or planks (i.e. to saw logs or timber into boards or planks)

   to saw shingles; to saw out a panel

• French: scier
• German: sägen
• Italian: segare
• Portuguese: serrar
• Russian: (imperfective) пили́ть
• Spanish: serrar

saw (plural saws)

1. (obsolete) Something spoken; speech, discourse.
   • a. 1472, Thomas Malory, “(please specify the chapter)”, in [Le Morte Darthur], book V, [London: […] by William Caxton], published 31 July 1485, OCLC 71490786 ↗; republished as H[einrich] Oskar Sommer, editor, Le Morte Darthur […], London: Published by David Nutt, […], 1889, OCLC 890162034 ↗:

     And for thy trew sawys, and I may lyve many wynters, there was never no knyght better rewardid […].

     And for your true discourses, and I may live many winters, there was never no knight better rewarded […].

2. A saying or proverb.

   Synonyms: Thesaurus:saying

   old saw

   • 1599, William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II Scene VII, lines 152-5.

     And then the justice, / In fair round belly with good capon lined, / With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, / Full of wise saws and modern instances.

   • 1902, Charles Robert Ashbee, Masque of the Edwards of England, page 8.

     At his crowning […] the priest in his honour preached on the saw, 'Vox populi, vox Dei.'

   • 2017, Andrew Marantz, "Becoming Steve Bannon's Bannon", The New Yorker, Feb 13&20 ed.

     There’s an old saw about Washington, D.C., that staffers in their twenties know more about the minutiae of government than their bosses do.

3. (obsolete) Opinion, idea, belief.

   by thy saw

   commune saw

   on no saw

   • Þe more comoun sawe is þat Remus was i-slawe for he leep ouer þe newe walles of Rome.

     The more common opinion is that Remus was slain for he lept over the new walls of Rome.

4. (obsolete) Proposal, suggestion; possibility.

   • All they assentyd to the sawe; They thoght he spake reson and lawe.

5. (obsolete) Dictate; command; decree.

   • [Love] rules the creatures by his powerful saw.

• French: proverbe
• German: Spruch, Sprichwort
• Italian: adagio
• Portuguese: provérbio
• Russian: посло́вица
• Spanish: proverbio, refrán, dicho

1. simple past tense of see
2. (colloquial, nonstandard) Past participle of see

1. (slang) What's up (either as a greeting or actual question).

   — Saw, dude?
   — Not much.

1. (Islam, proscribed) صَلَّى اللّٰهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ

saw (plural saws)

1. (military, US) A squad automatic weapon or section automatic weapon, a kind of light machine gun.
2. (physics) Initialism of surface acoustic wave

saw (plural saws)

1. (slang, African American Vernacular English) A Bahamian.
   • 1937, Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Harper Perennial (2000), page 154:

     Since Tea Cake and Janie had friended with the Bahaman workers in the ’Glades, they, the “Saws,” had been gradually drawn into the American crowd.