A New Word for Your Vocabulary

Poleaxed: (verb) pohl-aks

1.	a medieval shafted weapon with blade combining ax, hammer, and apical spike, used for fighting on foot.

2.	an ax, usually with a hammer opposite the cutting edge, used in stunning and slaughtering animals.

3.	an ax with both a blade and a hook, formerly used in naval warfare to assist sailors in boarding vessels.

–verb (used with object)

4.	to strike down or kill with or as if with a poleax.

Where I found this word: in Coyote Blue by Christopher Moore

Usage: "So it happened that on an autum-soft sunny day, not two weeks after his thirty-fifth birthday, some twenty years after he had run away from home, Samuel Hunter stepped out of his office onto the sidewalk and was poleaxed by desire." pg 16.

Nice.