hatchet
n.a small tool with a short handle and a sharp blade used for cutting wood. You can use it with one hand to chop small logs or branches.
n.a small, short-handled axe designed for use with one hand. Often features a hammer-like surface on the side opposite the blade.
“He used a hatchet to chop wood for the campfire.”
“The campers packed a lightweight hatchet to help clear small branches from their designated sleeping area.”
“While a full-sized axe is necessary for felling large trees, a well-balanced hatchet is the superior tool for the precise task of splitting kindling for a domestic hearth.”
Commonly appears in the idiom 'to bury the hatchet', meaning to make peace with an enemy.
From Middle English hachet, a borrowing from Old French hachete, diminutive of hache (“axe”), from Vulgar Latin happia, from Frankish happjā, from Proto-Germanic hapjǭ, habjǭ (“knife”), from Proto-Indo-European *kop- (“to strike, to beat”). Cognate with Old High German happa, heppa, habba (“reaper, sickle”), German Hippe (“billhook”), Dutch heep, hiep (“billhook”), and Ancient Greek κοπίς (kopís). Mostly displaced native Old English handæx, whence Modern English hand axe.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.