buzz saw

See also: buzzsaw and buzz-saw

English

A buzz saw

Alternative forms

• buzz-saw

Noun

buzz saw (plural buzz saws)

1. A powerful, noisy, motorized saw, typically having a rotary blade with large teeth, sometimes portable and sometimes mounted into a table.

   Synonym: circular saw

   • 1905, Henry Adams, chapter 12, in The Education of Henry Adams:

     The American mind exasperated the European as a buzz-saw might exasperate a pine forest.

   • 1916, Robert Frost, Out, Out–:

     The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard
     And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood

   • 1987 May 25, David Brand, “Tick, Buzz, It's That Time Again Locusts?”, in Time, retrieved 27 May 2014:

     A population in full song can exceed 100 decibels, roughly the level of a circular buzz saw at full throttle.

   • 2003 April 14, John Tagliabue, “Another Daring Jailbreak Embarrasses French Government”, in New York Times, retrieved 27 May 2014:

     [T]hree inmates were freed today by accomplices who descended on a prison in central France in a helicopter, then used a buzz saw to rip through security netting.

2. A type of noisemaker in the form of a spinning disc spun on an untwisting string like a whirligig.

Derived terms

• glacial buzz saw

See also

• circular saw

References

• “buzz saw”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.