(ædz)  Forms: 1 adesa (eadesa), 2-4 adese, 5 adse, 6 adys, 6-7 addis, addice, addes, adds, ads, (7 atch), 8- adz, adze. [Origin of OE. adesa unknown.] 

    A carpenter's or cooper's tool, like an axe with the blade set at right angles to the handle and curving inwards towards it; used for cutting or slicing away the surface of wood.
 
  c880 K. ÆLFRED Bæda iv. 3 He..bæ r him æcse and adesan on handa. 11th c. Vocab. (in Wright 84) Ascia, Adesa. 1388 WYCLIF Is. xliv. 13 A carpenter stretchide forth a reule, he fourmyde it with an adese. c1420 Pallad. on Husb. I. 1161 Set rakes, crookes, adses, and bycornes. a1500 Debate of Carp. Tools 53 in Hazl. E.P.P. I. 81 To hym then seyd the adys, And seyd; e, sir, god glades. 1530 PALSGR. 193/1 Addis a coupers instrument. Dolovere. 1552 HULOET, Addice, cowpers instrumente. Harpago. 1578 R. SCOT Perfite Platf. of Hoppe Gard. 27 Prepare a toole af yron fashioned somewhat lyke to a Coopers Addes. 1580 TUSSER Husb. xvii. 9 An ax and a nads, to make troffe for thy hogs. [Cf. a nother.] 1594 NASHE Vnfort. Trav. 20 Some had barres of yron..some wood-kniues, some addises for their weapons. 1598 LYLY Mother Bombie IV. ii. 128, I had thought I had rode upon addices between this & Canterbury. 1611 COTGR., Doloire, a (Coopers) ax, or addis. 1665 PEPYS Diary (1879) III. 254 A yew tree..which upon cutting with an addes, we found to be rather harder than the living tree is. 1681 R. KNOX Hist. Rel. Ceylon (1817) 174 They have also..axes, bills, houghs, atches, chissels, and other tools. 1697 W. DAMPIER Voy. (1729) I. 332 They can take it out of the Helve, and by turning it make an Adds of it. 1703 MOXON Mech. Exerc. 119 The Adz..hath its Blade made thin, and somewhat arching. 1772-84 COOK Voy. (1790) I. 60 Captain Cook having produced an iron adze. 1869 LUBBOCK Prehist. Times xiii. 459 The stone axes, or rather adzes, were of various sizes. 1877 BRYANT Odyss. v. 287 A polished adze she gave him next.
 

    Comb. adze-like a.
 
  1859 R. F. BURTON Centr. Afr. in Jrnl. R.G.S. XXIX. 396 It is like a child's plaything, with an adze-like iron. 1865 LUBBOCK Prehist. Times 452 The adze-like hatchets of the South Sea Islanders.