Hatchet

A hatchet is a single handed striking tool with a sharp blade on one side, used to cut and split wood, and a hammerhead on the other side. The name comes from the Old French hachete, a diminutive of hache, meaning axe. Although hand axes and hatchets are sometimes used interchangeably today, nineteenth and twentieth century manufacturers distinguished them, hatchets being specialized construction tools with straight handles built for particular jobs, while hand axes were general purpose woods tools. Common hatchet patterns include the carpenter's hatchet, the roofing or shingling hatchet, and the lathing or drywall hatchet. In Middle English the term also referred to small battle axes.