0 a small axe (= tool with a blade that cuts when you hit things with it)
1 a tool with a blade that cuts which is attached to a short handle; a small ax
If you are a boy, go and get your hatchet, and set off for the mountains to chop wood!
The hatchet was finally buried after years of fighting.
No wonder, then, that he stands aghast at broken windows, damaged letters, false fire alarms, cut telegraph wires, obstructed railway signals, at incendiarism and hatchets.
It was carved up with the help of a hatchet man.
In today's debate some political hatchets have been buried, and that is very comforting.
It is taking a hatchet to the machinery of government; letting one lot fall here and another there, without a rational analysis of the need.
No doubt we may be able to unearth some other hatchets to take its place.
It would also mean taking a hatchet to the industry so brutally that we should be dependent on imports to an unacceptable degree.