knife
A utensil or a tool designed for cutting, consisting of a flat piece of hard material, usually steel or other metal (the blade), usually sharpened on one edge, attached to a handle. The blade may be pointed for piercing.
Noun
- A utensil or a tool designed for cutting, consisting of a flat piece of hard material, usually steel or other metal (the blade), usually sharpened on one edge, attached to a handle. The blade may be pointed for piercing.
- He was looking for a knife to chop some steak.
- Jeff was bent low over the backboard, working with the knife, a steady sawing motion, his shirt soaked through with sweat. - 2007, Scott Smith, The Ruins, page 273:
- A weapon designed with the aforementioned specifications intended for slashing or stabbing but too short to be called a sword; a dagger.
- Any blade-like part in a tool or a machine designed for cutting, such as that of a chipper.
Origin
From Middle English knyf, knif, from late Old English cnīf, from Old Norse knífr or Proto-West Germanic *knīb, from Proto-Germanic *knībaz, from *knīpaną (“to pinch”), Proto-Indo-European *gneybʰ- (compare Lithuanian gnýbti, žnýbti (“to pinch”), gnaibis (“pinching”)). Displaced native Middle English sax (“knife”), from Old English seax; and Middle English coutel, qwetyll (“knife”) from Old French coutel. * The verb is first attested in 1865. The variant knive is first attested in 1733. Cognates Cognate with Yola kunnife (“knife”), North Frisian knif (“knife”), Dutch knijf (“long pointy knife, poniard”), German Knifte (“rifle; thick slicebread”), German Low German Knief (“knife”), Luxembourgish Knäip (“paring knife”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk kniv (“knife”), Faroese knívur (“knife”), Icelandic hnífur, knífur (“knife”), Swedish knif, kniv (“knife”).
Forms
Wikipedia
Hypernyms
Hyponyms
007 knife air knife athame ballistic knife banana knife Barlow knife Batangas knife bayonet bistoury Bolo knife boning knife boot knife Bowie knife bowie knife bread knife bush knife butcher knife butchers' knife butcher's knife butterfly knife butterknife butter knife cane knife carpet knife
Derived
before you can say knife bring a knife to a gunfight byknife catch a falling knife cut deeper than a knife cut like a knife cut with a knife and fork cyberknife did my back hurt your knife electroknife falling knife histoknife hot-knife knife and fork knife-and-fork knife arch knifeblade knife block knifeboard knife-boy knife-coloured knife control knifecraft knifecrime
Verb
- To cut with a knife.
- To use a knife to injure or kill by stabbing, slashing, or otherwise using the sharp edge of the knife as a weapon.
- She was repeatedly knifed in the chest.
- One day his sergeant began to cane him, on which, seizing his knife, he knifed the sergeant : he knifed the privates : he knifed until he was finally overpowered, and, brought before a court-martial, was condemned to...
- The plane has been hijacked. They've already knifed a guy. - 2012, Robert Biswas-Diener, The Courage Quotient: How Science Can Make You Braver, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 92:
- To cut through as if with a knife.
- The boat knifed through the water.
- To betray, especially in the context of a political slate.
Synonyms: burn quisle stab in the back assfuck betray cop out cross out cross up double-cross do someone dirty do the dirty on false go back on knife let down play someone false renegade sell sell the pass sell down the river sell down sell out swike traitorize
- To positively ignore, especially in order to denigrate; compare cut.