A very large, heavy knife, usually with one sharp edge. It's main usage is to slash and cut, not to stab because it usually has no point, only a long slashing edge. Machetes are common weapons in Africa, Asia and South America. In some areas where guns have entered mainstream culture, machetes are still the weapon of choice.

In Asia, where guns are still not used as extensively by gangs as in America, machetes are the main weapons used in gangland warfare. In brutal battles known as "choppings", gang members would slash wildly, often maiming each other, chopping off fingers or even entire arms. Death by "chopping" is a much more macabre way to die than gun wounds, victims bleed to death with small parts of their bodies littered around them. Very nasty.

Ma*che"te (?), n. [Sp.]

A large heavy knife resembling a broadsword, often two or three feet in length, -- used by the inhabitants of Spanish America as a hatchet to cut their way through thickets, and for various other purposes.

J. Stevens.

 

© Webster 1913.