Saxon

Partially from Middle English Saxe, Sax; from Old English *Seaxa (attested in plural Seaxan), and Saxoun, from Old French *Saxoun, Saxon (“Saxon”), from Late Latin Saxonem, accusative of Saxo (“a Saxon”), both from Proto-West Germanic *sahs, from Proto-Germanic *sahsą (“rock, knife”), from Proto-Indo-European *sek- (“to cut”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈsæksən/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æksən

Saxon (plural Saxons)

1. A member of an ancient West Germanic tribe that lived at the eastern North Sea coast and south of it.
   • 1881, John Kirby Hedges, The history of Wallingford‎, volume 1, page 170:

     Kenett states that the military works still known by the name of Tadmarten Camp and Hook-Norton Barrow were cast up at this time ; the former, large and round, is judged to be a fortification of the Danes, and the latter, being smaller and rather a quinquangle than a square, of the Saxons.

2. A native or inhabitant of Saxony.
   • 2002, Jonathan Grix, Paul Cooke, East German distinctiveness in a unified Germany, page 142:

     [...] in West Germany Saxony and Saxons became synonymous with Ulbricht's Communist regime, [...]

   • 2005, Judd Stitziel, Fashioning socialism: clothing, politics, and consumer culture, page 69:

     The film taught that socialist competition, through encouraging the collaboration of both men and women and Saxons and Berliners, could overcome the natural antagonism between male industrial mass production and female fashion.

   • 2008, Eckbert Schulz-Schomburgk, From Leipzig to Venezuela, page 40:

     Dealing with people there was different from the way I dealt with Saxons, Berliners and others back in Leipzig.

3. (uncountable, US printing, rare, dated) A size of type between German and Norse, 2-point type.
4. (Ireland, Wales, poetic) An English/British person.
   • 1973, Sean McCarthy (lyrics and music), “Shanagolden”:

     Then came the call to arms, love, the heather was aflame / Down from the silent mountains, the Saxon strangers came.

5. A kind of rapidly spinning ground-based firework.

• Transylvanian Saxon

• Anglo-Saxon

• → Korean: 색슨 (saekseun)
• → Welsh: Sacson

Saxon

1. The language of the ancient Saxons.
2. The dialect of modern High German spoken in Saxony.
   • 2014, Marco Polo, Dresden Marco Polo Guide, →ISBN, page 21:

     Not everyone from the former GDR states are Saxons – and they do not all speak Saxon, […]

   • 2014, Gaston Dorren, Lingo: A Language Spotter's Guide to Europe, →ISBN:

     But does this mean that Germans nowadays speak Saxon? Far from it, in fact; Saxon is the most widely despised dialect in Germany, by a wide margin.

3. A surname.
4. A male given name transferred from the surname, of modern usage or directly from the noun Saxon.
5. A place name:
   1. A census-designated place in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, United States.
   2. An unincorporated community in Raleigh County, West Virginia, United States.
   3. A town and census-designated place therein, in Iron County, Wisconsin, United States.
   4. A municipality in Martigny district, Valais canton, Switzerland.

(ancient Saxons' language):

• Anglo-Saxon
• West Saxon
• Semi-Saxon
• Scoto-Saxon

• Old Saxon (Old Low Saxon, Old Low German)
• Middle Saxon (Middle Low Saxon, Middle Low German)
• New Saxon (New Low Saxon, New Low German)

(High German dialect):

• Friso-Saxon
• Upper Saxon
• Transylvanian Saxon

Saxon (comparative more Saxon, superlative most Saxon)

1. Of, relating to, or characteristic of the Saxons.
   • 2009, M. K. Hume, King Arthur: Dragon’s Child, London: Headline Review, →ISBN, page 340:

     But his bitch queen was Saxon to the bone and her legacy showed in the sons that Vortigern bred off her. Katigern Minor might be young, but he has become what his grandfather never was – more Saxon than Celt.

   • 2010, Sandra Hill, Viking in Love, New York, N.Y.: Avon, →ISBN, page 353:

     Eadyth managed to make one of her beekeeping veils into a bridal veil hanging from a circlet of Drifa’s flowers. All this attire was more Saxon than Norse. So she wore her hair in one long braid, Viking style, and at her shoulder was a brooch in a writhing, intertwined animal design. / Her sisters looked just as lovely in their bright gowns, Tyra’s Saxon style, but the others pure Viking.

2. Of, relating to, or characteristic of Saxony.
3. Of, relating to, or characteristic of the Saxon language.
4. (Ireland, Wales, poetic) Of, relating to, or characteristic of England, typically as opposed to a Celtic nationality.
   • 1987, Idries Shah, Adventures, Facts and Fantasy in Darkest England, London: The Octagon Press, →ISBN, page 325:

     He was a large, very Saxon type of man; that is to say, an English one, having shed the vices and cruelties and developed the patience and cool-headedness.

• Anglo-Saxon

• Saxonian

• Axson, Naxos, axons

Inherited from Old French Saxon, borrowed from Late Latin Saxō, of West Germanic origin, ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *sahsō.

Saxon m (plural Saxons, feminine Saxonne)

1. Saxon (resident or native of Saxony) (male or of unspecified gender)

• “Saxon”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.