# buzzsaw
## English
### Etymology

From buzz +‎ saw.

### Noun

buzzsaw (plural buzzsaws)
* A circular saw.
** 2008 May 30, Andrew Martin, “Food Report Criticizes Biofuel Policies”, in New York Times‎:Agriculture Secretary Edward T. Schafer is preparing to walk into a buzzsaw of criticism over American biofuels policy when he meets with world leaders to discuss the global food crisis next week.
* (slang) Someone or something that makes a loud, harsh, grinding or rasping noise, like that of a circular saw.
** 1979, Michael Bishop, Catacomb Years, page 112:No danger of these buzzsaws waking up, it was enough to make you wish for impaired hearing.
** 2006, Maximum Rocknroll - Issue 277, page 30:Anyway, buzzsaw hardcore from both bands with nice 'n' trebly production, and each have some Japanese influences in there.
** 2011, Phillip A. Elwood, Giant in the Hills, page 11:Nasal buzzsaws shook the sides of the tent as finally, they were all out for night.
** 2014, Wendy Ruderman, Barbara Laker, Busted:In the darkness, Benny listened to the sounds of the street: a far-off police siren, a dog's growl, a hip-hop pulse blaring from a car stereo, the buzzsaw whine of the El.
* (slang) The MG 42 general-purpose machine gun.
** 2012, Benjamin Blackie, Sea Dogs, page 56:Golden tracers from the jaggering MG42 buzzsaw lit up the air like glitter, and from both directions there were bee-hive-volumes of whizzes and snaps as bullets passed through the air, in some cases only feet from them.
** 2018, Mark Felton, Ghost Riders:Suddenly, machine-gun rounds tore over their heads, stitching a neat row of holes in the wall above them, the weapon's unmistakable ripping report identifying it as a 'buzz saw', as the GIs had nicknamed the German MG42 because of its stupendous rate of fire.
** 2020, David Mack, The Shadow Commission:Cade braced its stock against his shoulder, sighted the moving shadows in the woods, and let the buzz saw chew into them.
** 2020, Daniel Altman, Fawn Zwickel, From Omaha Beach to Nuremberg: A Memoir of World War II, page 13:On Omaha Beach, the Panzer Army locked up the beachhead with eight concrete bunkers, with their buzzsaw MG-42 machine guns that fired 1,500 rounds per minute, aimed from 35 pillboxes with automatic artillery pieces of different sizes.
* (slang) A violently destructive attack.
** 1983, TVI Journal - Volume 4, page 15:The changes ran into a buzzsaw of Congressional criticism.
** 1987, Paul Morris Hirsch, Pack Your Own Parachute, page 88:Downsizings attack managers like an emotional buzzsaw.
** 1994, Jimmy Johnson, Ed Hinton, Turning the Thing Around: My Life in Football, page 24:Landry's martyrdom was automatic and mostly unavoidable -- although Jerry, bless his heart, went into his initial press conference at Valley Ranch and walked right into his second media buzzsaw.
** 1995, Henry W. Thomas, Walter Johnson: Baseball's Big Train, page 322:But aware of it or not, Johnson was heading into a buzzsaw.
** 1997, Robert Peterson, Joni Peterson, J. Allen Kirsch, Rites of Passage: Odyssey of a Grunt, page 51:We knew that we were headed into a buzzsaw and some of us might not come back, a thought so absurd and so real that it was overwhelming.
** 2013, Stephen Hunter, Hot Springs:The old wood and plasterboard vaporized under the buzzsaw of .30 caliber bullets.
* One who attacks violently and/or mindlessly.
** 1935, Ivor Armstrong Richards, Basic in Teaching: East and West, page 8:So he keeps away from the intellectual buzzsaws; and, as both philology and philosophy grow ever more and more technical, the gap between them, if anything, widens.
** 1973, Kansas Fish and Game - Volumes 30-33, page 2:Apparently the jay was unaware that the hawk no longer had its hold because it became a buzzsaw of blue fury, slashing the hawk several more times.
** 1992, The Pet Bird Report - Volumes 2-4, page 10:Similarly , if mom or dad choose to do something other than play with the little feathered buzzsaws, as occasionally we humans do , the birds would have no choice but to "play" with whatever was handy: chairs, lamps, cabinets, pillows, or original Picasso... you get the idea.
** 2010, Gary Wolfram, Cars and Trucks, Markets and Governments, page 31:But the minute he arrived, he ran into a buzzsaw named Lee Iacocca.
** 2015, Jamie Mason, Kezzie of Babylon:Perhaps it's habit, an ingrained autonomous component to feeding, a lingering artifact from when they were still alive, thinking creatures instead of walking buzzsaws.

#### Derived terms

* Hitler's buzzsaw

### Verb

buzzsaw (third-person singular simple present buzzsaws, present participle buzzsawing, simple past and past participle buzzsawed)
* (transitive) To cut with a circular saw.
* (intransitive, colloquial) To spin rapidly like the blades of a circular saw.
** 1990, Kyle Maning, Blood Storm, page 53:The 7.62 tumblers would buzzsaw through the flimsy protection offered by the float.
* (transitive, intransitive, colloquial) To produce a loud, harsh noise like that of a circular saw.
** 1981, Michael Hogan, The Broken Face of Summer: Poems:When the sun comes early through eastern windows and a single horsefly buzzsaws the air it is then I rise from bed my dreams of amputation, of teeth lost, cloaked in the amnesia of another day overwhelmed with trivia.
** 2014, Cody Toye, Evolution:A loud screeching sound buzzsaws the eerie silence of the day.