Saxe
/sæks/ proper noun, noun
- proper noun (now only in compounds or attributively) Saxony: A historical region and former duchy in north-central Germany
- proper noun A surname from the Germanic languages.
- noun (photography, historical) A German albumenized paper used in photography.
Synonyms
Hermann Maurice Saxe comte de Saxe Marshal Saxe Saxony Sachsen
Etymology
Seemingly a combination of influences: Middle English Saxe (“the Saxons”) (from Old English Seaxe), Middle French Saxe (“Saxony”), and German Sachsen (“Saxony”) and Sachse (“a Saxon”) itself, rewritten with x (compare regional German Saxen). The form Saxẽ (i.e., Saxen) is found in some Early Modern sources.
The surname is also partly from German Sachs, itself a variant of Sachse; a variant of Dutch Sas (literally “Saxon”), a cognate; and Middle English Saxe, a personal name from Old Norse Saxi, from sax (“one-edged sword”). All of these ultimately lead back to Proto-Germanic *sahsą (“dagger, knife”). Doublet of Sachs, Sax, Sas, and Sachse.
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “Saxe”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details