Axel

How to spell axel

4 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce axel

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does axel mean?

1. nounA figure-skating jump taken off from the forward outside edge of one skate, with an extra half rotation in the air.

Axel in a sentence

• The young skater finally landed a clean triple axel at the championship.

• Her coach spent the whole session drilling the takeoff for the axel.

Where does axel come from?

Language of origin: Other

This word is an eponym: it preserves the first name of the Norwegian figure skater Axel Paulsen, who first demonstrated the forward-takeoff jump in 1882. The personal name Axel is a Scandinavian (especially Danish and Norwegian) form of the older biblical name Absalom, which comes from the Hebrew Avshalom and literally means something like 'father is peace'. Skaters and commentators adopted the surname-into-jump habit common in the sport, so the move came to be called simply the axel. The spelling stuck to the Scandinavian name rather than to the ordinary English word axle, which is why the two are now confusing homophones. The trap is purely visual: axel ends in -el because it honours a person, while the mechanical axle ends in -le.

How the word is built

• axel (from the personal name of Norwegian skater Axel Paulsen); a single, unsegmented eponym

Words that sound like axel

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• axle: The rod or shaft on which a wheel or pair of wheels turns.