SAVAGE AS A MEAT-AXE, phr. (American).—Extremely hungry.
1842. CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND, Forest Life, I. xii. ‘Why, you don’t eat nothing!’ he exclaimed; ‘ridin’ don’t agree with you, I guess! Now for my part it makes me as SAVAGE AS A MEAT-AXE!’
1843. B. R. HALL (‘Robert Carlton’) The New Purchase, II., 142. It would be a charity to give the pious brother sich a feed now and then [as chickin-fixins and doins], for he looks half-starved, and SAVAGE AS A MEAT-AXE.
