Saxon
pronunciation
How to pronounce Saxon in British English:
UK [ˈsæksn]
How to pronounce Saxon in American English:
US [ˈsæksn]
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- Noun:
- a member of a Germanic people who conquered England and merged with the Angles and Jutes to become Anglo-Saxons; dominant in England until the Norman conquest
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- Adjective:
- of or relating to or characteristic of the early Saxons or Anglo-Saxons and their descendents (especially the English or Lowland Scots) and their language
Word Origin
- Saxon (n.)
- c. 1200, from Late Latin Saxonem (nominative Saxo; also source of French Saxon, Spanish Sajon, Italian Sassone), usually found in plural Saxones, from a Germanic source (Old English Seaxe, Old High German Sahsun, German Sachse "Saxon"), with a possible literal sense of "swordsmen" (compare Old English seax, Old Frisian, Old Norse sax "knife, short sword, dagger," Old High German Saxnot, name of a war-god), from Proto-Germanic *sahsam "knife," from PIE *sek- "to cut" (see section (n.)). The word figures in the well-known story, related by Geoffrey of Monmouth, who got it from Nennius, of the treacherous slaughter by the Anglo-Saxons of their British hosts:Accordingly they all met at the time and place appointed, and began to treat of peace; and when a fit opportunity offered for executing his villany, Hengist cried out, "Nemet oure Saxas," and the same instant seized Vortigern, and held him by his cloak. The Saxons, upon the signal given, drew their daggers, and falling upon the princes, who little suspected any such design, assassinated them to the number of four hundred and sixty barons and consuls ....The OED editors helpfully point out that the correct Old English (with an uninflected plural) would be nimað eowre seax. For other Germanic national names that may have derived from characteristic tribal weapons, see Frank, Lombard. As an adjective from 1560s. Still in 20c. used by Celtic speakers to mean "an Englishman" (Welsh Sais, plural Seison "an Englishman;" Seisoneg "English"). In reference to the modern German state of Saxony (German Sachsen, French Saxe) it is attested from 1630s. Saxon is the source of the -sex in Essex, Sussex, etc. (compare Middlesex, from Old English Middel-Seaxe "Middle Saxons"). Bede distinguished the Anglo-Saxons, who conquered much of southern Britain, from the Ealdesaxe "Old Saxons," who stayed in Germany.
Example
- 1. Anglo saxon poetry is formulaic .
- 2. One rare surviving ensemble in the show was made in the northern italian city for a saxon duke .
- 3. Have you read for the part of the saxon princess ?
- 4. On oct. 9 , " warriors " gathered to re-create the a.d. 1066 battle of hastings in the very same field where the last saxon monarch , king harold , and william , duke of normandy , fought for the english throne .
- 5. Its project , with developers william verry and saxon homes , is now in construction in aylesbury , north of london .