knife

knives (plural)
knyfe (alternative)
knive (alternative)

Sranan Tongo: nefi

→ Japanese: ナイフ

→ Korean: 나이프 (naipeu)

→ Portuguese: naifa

→ Samoan: naifi

From Middle English knyf, knif, from late Old English cnīf, from Old Norse knífr, 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 knife is attested since the mid 1800s; the variant knive is attested since 1733.

you could cut the atmosphere with a knife

Jeff was bent low over the backboard, working with the knife, a steady sawing motion, his shirt soaked through with sweat.

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.


bistoury

From French bistouri, from archaic Italian pistorese or pistorino (“from Pistoia”); the city of Pistoia was once famous for the manufacturing of blades.

(surgery) A narrow-bladed surgical knife


scalpel

Borrowed from Latin scalpellum, from scalprum (“knife”), from scalpere (“to cut”). Displaced native Old English lǣċeseax (literally “doctor knife”).

ncog

A small straight knife with a very sharp blade used for surgery, dissection and craftwork.


athame

From French arthame in a 1929 passage from É.-J. Grillot de Givry (see 1931 citation below), apparently from Medieval Latin artavus (“quill-sharpening knife”). Artavus was also mistranslated into artauo in an Italian manuscript. The arthame was conflated with the cortel nero ("black knife") by Grillot de Givry, and that conflation was passed on to Gerald Gardner (whose 1954 book Witchcraft Today introduced Wicca to the public).

der

She is moving with a regal gait, grasping the arthame, or magic knife.

1931, Émile-Jules Grillot de Givry, chapter 7, in JC Locke, transl., Witchcraft, Magic and Alchemy:

Agia was quicker, making a cut at my neck with an athame before his weapon was free of the scabbard.

1981, Gene Wolfe, chapter VII, in The Claw of the Conciliator (The Book of the New Sun; 2), New York: Timescape, →ISBN, page 60:

The athame is a black-handled ritual knife—one of the most common distinguishing marks of the Neopagan Witch.

1999, James R. Lewis, Witchcraft Today: An Encyclopedia of Wiccan and Neopagan Traditions, page 22:

Tradition says an athame should never have drawn blood.

2023, Skye Alexander, The Kitchen Witch, Simon & Schuster (Adams Media), page 60:

A ceremonial pointed knife or dagger, used especially in Wicca and other neopagan traditions and typically having a black handle with magical symbols on it.

Gerald Gardner
Witchcraft Today
athame
Émile-Jules Grillot de Givry


usuba bocho

Borrowed from Japanese 薄刃包丁 (usuba-bōchō, “thin knife”).

bor

A thin, Japanese-style, straight-edged vegetable knife.


coulter

coulters (plural)
colter (alternative)
culter (alternative)

Inherited from Middle English culter, from Old English culter, from Latin culter (“a knife”). For the phonetic development, see poultry.

(British) The part of a seed drill that makes the furrow for the seed.


hunting knife

I had hacked at the head of one man with my hunting-knife, which was almost as big and heavy as a short sword, with such vigour, that the sharp steel had split his skull down to the eyes, and was held so fast by it that as he suddenly fell sideways the knife was twisted right out of my hand.

1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

Among other things he found a sharp hunting knife, on the keen blade of which he immediately proceeded to cut his finger. Undaunted he continued his experiments, finding that he could hack and hew splinters of wood from the table and chairs with this new toy.

1912 October, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan of the Apes”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as chapter 6, in Tarzan of the Apes, New York, N.Y.: A. L. Burt Company, 1914 June, →OCLC:

I had had to discard my rifle before I commenced the rapid descent of the cliff, so that now I was armed only with a hunting knife, and this I whipped from its scabbard as Kho leaped toward me.

1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as “(please specify the chapter number)”, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:

A knife optimized for use in hunting animals, usually with a substantial belly and sometimes with a back edge that is partially serrated for sawing; fixed-blade and folding versions are both popular, and tasks such as field dressing, skinning, and bushcraft are anticipated.


Swiss Army knife

en-noun

Swiss Army knife (plural Swiss Army knives)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Swiss Army knife.wav

Swiss Armed Forces
Swiss Army knife
Swiss Army knife#History

From the prominent (although not exclusive) association of this type of knife with officers of the Swiss Army; see Swiss Army knife § History for details.

Any of a class of multi-function pocket knives or multitools, having a blade and various tools, such as screwdrivers and can openers.


survival knife

A knife intended for survival purposes in a wilderness environment, often in an emergency situation when the user has lost other equipment.


diving knife

(underwater diving) a type of knife used by divers, with a wide, serrated blade.


jook

From Jamaican Creole jook, from Fula jukka (“to poke”).

Make man run when I back this jook
Chef man up but ain’t no cook

2021 April 21, MJ & Earna (lyrics and music), “Baejing”, 1:14–1:18:


Stanley knife

From a brand name owned by the US tool manufacturer formerly known as Stanley Works; from Stanley (“surname”) + knife.

Hotels expect to lose ashtrays, coat hangers and towels, for me it was Stanley knives. I didn′t mind a bit! If anyone bought a ₤35 a carpet, they were more than welcome to a 50 pence knife.

1988, Dennis Sloan, The Twenty-Third Little Varmint, published 2005, page 126:

[…]the trams floating slowly down Swanston Street, paper-sellers cutting open bundles with Stanley knives, the smell of ground coffee from the downstairs cafe,[…].

2002, Guy Rundle, “Up from the Dead”, in Peter Craven, editor, The Best Australian Essays 2002, page 187:

He gripped his Stanley knife and swung open the door almost detaching it from its hinges.

2003, Anthony Hulse, Insanity Never Sleeps, Mediaworld, UK, page 30:

Manchester′s ‘golden boys’, Joy Division, had recently been devastated by the death of their singer, Ian Curtis: that good-looking, sad young man had made a spectacular exit by carving a smile on his face with a Stanley knife before hanging himself.

2004, David Bret, Morrissey: Scandal & Passion, page 34:

(UK, Australia, New Zealand) A type of retractable utility knife with a replaceable blade.


Bowie knife

Bowie knives (plural)
bowie knife (alternative)

After James "Jim" Bowie (1796-1836), American pioneer and soldier who famously used such a knife as a weapon in a duel.

A large sheath knife, usually of clip point style and usually with large guards at the ricasso.


case knife

A large table knife of a kind formerly kept in a case.


kitchen knife

菜刀

typical knife for preparing food — see also chef's knife


voiding knife

(obsolete) A long, usually wooden, knife used for gathering up crumbs and other remnants of food after a meal, to put them into a voider (type of basket).


dirk knife

A clasp-knife with a large blade like that of a dirk.


race knife

A kind of knife hooked at the point, used especially nautically for marking outlines on boards or metals.


Swiss Army penknife

Swiss Army penknife (plural Swiss Army penknives)


hori-hori

Detectorists may also carry headphones, a metal detecting shovel, hand tools such as a hori-hori (a serrated, steel hand shovel), a “finds pouch,” and a hand-held precision detector called a pinpointer.

2021 May 31, Alexandra Marvar, “The New Detectorists”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:


tomato knife

A small serrated kitchen knife designed to slice through tomatoes.


chef's knife

chef's knife (plural chef's knives or chefs' knives)

chef's knives (plural)
chefs' knives (plural)

A type of general purpose kitchen knife used for food preparation, typically measuring eight inches by one and a half inches.

菜刀

cleaver used as a chef's knife in Chinese cooking


cheffer

Grab the mic and I drop my cheffer

2020 October 13, Vlone975 where Vlone (lyrics and music), “Ben n’ Jerry’s”:

.38 in my pouch, man do it with skills
Man do it with tekkers, swing my cheffer

2021 December 9, Bully B X Stewie X LR (Sin Squad), there Bully B (lyrics and music), “Hello”, 0:40–0:45:


carpet knife

A utility knife suitable for cutting through carpet.


sheepsfoot

(printing, historical) A printer's tool with a claw at one end for prizing up forms.

These small blades are quite odd looking, as they don't have a point. The edge of a sheepsfoot blade is commonly straight. The spine is often quite straight, but it suddenly veers almost straight down to meet the edge at the tip.

2021 March 5, Jake Welsh, Bladesmithing: A Step-by-Step Guide to Forging Your Own Knives for Beginners, Novelty Publishing LLC, page 36:

A blade with one straight edge and one edge which runs parallel for most of the blade's length until it curves abruptly (almost at a right angle) down to a point at the tip, resulting in less of a piercing point than on a Wharncliffe; (loosely) a Wharncliffe.


goniotome

(surgery) An angled knife used in goniotomy


boning knife

He held up his right-hand index finger to the light, to reveal a worn-away depression near the knuckle, the upshot of seven decades trimming meat with a narrow-handled boning knife.

2020 September 1, Tom Lamont, “The butcher's shop that lasted 300 years (give or take)”, in The Guardian:

a sharp-pointed and narrow-bladed kitchen knife, used for removing the bones of poultry, meat, and fish.


Ginsu

Marketing coinage, intended to evoke the idea of Japanese samurai swords.

The yearning a man feels when he watches the Food Network springs from the same well of forbidden fantasies that led to Michael Douglas' fiasco-fling with a Ginsu-wielding Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, except that now there's a 180-degree twist.

2006, Details, volume 25, number 1, page 174:


fascine knife

From fascine + knife, from one use of such knives which was to cut wood for fascines and gabions (“cylindrical wicker baskets or cages filled with earth or stones and used in fortifications, etc.”).

2000 Canteens. 600 Camp Kettles. 200 Fascine Knives. […] It is to be presumed the troops will be provided with these articles.

1779 March 2 (date written), George Washington, “To Major General Nathanael Greene”, in John C[lement] Fitzpatrick, editor, The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources 1745–1799 […], volume 14 (January 12, 1779 – May 5, 1779), Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, published August 1956, →OCLC, page 178:

The [artillery] men have a short rifle and bayonet, and carry also a fascine knife; 10 rounds of ammunition in the pouch.

[1876], W[illiam] S[mith] Cooke, compiler, “Servia”, in The Ottoman Empire and its Tributary States (Excepting Egypt), with a Sketch of Greece, London: W[illiam] Clowes and Son, […], →OCLC, page 162:

The private should have a side arm of the following description: A short sword, about 20 inches long and 2½ inches wide at the grip; the blade to be ground sharp on one side and provided with saw teeth on the other; have a brass guard and buckhorn grip, and to be carried in a leather scabbard on a frog and common black belt. This is called in Europe a fascine knife, and a very useful implement it is in camp and on the field.

1888 September 29, “Toujours Pret” [pseudonym], “The Hospital Corps [letter to the editor]”, in The United States Army and Navy Journal, and Gazette of the Regular and Volunteer Forces, volume XXVI, number 5 (number 1316 overall), New York, N.Y.: [Army and Navy Journal, Inc.], →OCLC, page 93, column 3:

Verily the man must feel as though he were in a dream; only a short time before, at a shoemaker's ordinary work, the knocking of his hammer mingling with the sighs of a sick wife, and now, fascine knife on hip, helmet on closely cropped head, officers' commands in ear, crowds of people, drums, music, and the shrill whistle of the locomotive!—to march far away to Bohemia; […]

1889, Cornelia McFadden, chapter V, in The Seamstress of Stettin, Cincinnati, Oh.: Curtis & Jennings; New York, N.Y.: Eaton & Mains, →OCLC, pages 141–142:

[I]f he were furnished with a hundred natives—whom he would get from the population on the coast—supplied with axes and fascine-knives, he would undertake to lead a caravan of beasts of burden to the Kenia without any delay worth mentioning.

1891, Theodor Hertzka, chapter II, in Arthur Ransom, transl., Freeland: A Social Anticipation, London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC, book I, page 10:

Sappeur sections carry in addition a mattock or a pick apiece, and each ammunition carrier also carries a pick, a fascine knife, or a saw.

1911, [William] Balck, “The Formal Tactics of Infantry”, in Walter Krueger, transl., Tactics […], 4th edition, volumes I (Introduction and Formal Tactics of Infantry), Fort Leavenworth, Kan.: United States Cavalry Association, →OCLC, footnote ‡, page 39:

Later, some military fascine knives were made with saw-toothed backs, notably the Prussian M1810, M1841 and M1855 Faschinenmesser. Fascine knives were widely issued to engineers, pioneers and foot-artillerymen; smaller numbers were issued to other arms as circumstances dictated.

2021, Bill Harriman, “Development: Blades for Firearms”, in Martin Pegler, editor, The Bayonet (Weapon; 78), Oxford, Oxfordshire: Osprey Publishing, →ISBN, page 28:

(military, weaponry, historical) A large, heavy knife or short sword used by 17th- to 19th-century artillery and infantry soldiers as a sidearm and a tool for cutting fascines (“cylindrical bundles of small sticks of wood, used for strengthening purposes”) and other things.

hukari

large, heavy knife or short sword formerly used by artillery and infantry soldiers as a sidearm and tool

砲兵刀 (ほうへいとう, hōhei gatana, literally “artilleryman’s knife”)


factory edge

The edge of a new knife. A new knife is not necessarily polished to its full potential or to the customer's liking.


jooker

King Kane with a jooker he's been stabby.

2014, Section Boys (lyrics and music), “SS Or S4P”:


Yakutian knife

A traditional multi-purpose knife made by the Yakuts of Siberia.


petty knife

From petty + knife, Derived from Japanese ペティナイフ, a compound of ペティ (unknown, perhaps from French petit) + ナイフ (from English knife).

compound

unknown, perhaps from French <i class="Latn mention" lang="fr">petit</i>

from English <i class="Latn mention" lang="en">knife</i>


Khyber knife

A kind of Indo-Persian knife designed to penetrate armor.


lambsfoot

We have a lambsfoot knife, a thing for cleaning pipes, a pipe, a tobacco pouch, three crushed boxes of matches, three throat lozenges (engrimed), nuts and bolts (assorted), a bill for sheep feed with something illegible written on the[…]

2014 December 22, R. W. F. Poole, The Buried Treasures, Lulu Press, Inc, →ISBN:

A claw-like blade with one straight edge and one edge which tapers to a point at the tip less abruptly than a sheepsfoot but not as gradually as a Wharncliffe.

Hanging from the beams were bunches of dried herbs, still fragrant from the last spring: moly and mint, yarrow and lambsfoot, tansy and thyme. A small pallet lay in the corner. Gawen guessed it was a daybed for naps.

2013 May 6, Jane Yolen, Sword of the Rightful King: A Novel of King Arthur, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, →ISBN:

birdsfoot trefoil
birdsfoot trefoil#English

Lotus corniculatus
Lotus corniculatus#Translingual

Synonym of birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus).


Wharncliffe

Wharncliffes (plural)
wharncliffe (alternative)

Named for James Archibald Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie, Lord of Wharncliffe, the source of the modern design.

Failing special instruments, the spine may be divided by strong scissors, or even by a penknife or a Wharncliffe blade.

1886, Robert Barnes, Lectures on obstetric operations including the treatment of haemorrhage and forming a guide to the management of difficult labour, page 192:

The edge of the Wharncliffe is straight and the spine rises and falls in a graceful, round arc producing a small, natural point, so it, too, offers a well-defined point of contact. However, it might not be the first choice for hard use[…]

2012 April 20, Roger Eckstine, Shooter's Bible Guide to Knives: A Complete Guide to Hunting Knives Survival Knives Folding Knives Skinning Knives Sharpeners and More, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN:

The author's second-generation Wharncliffe folder design for Spyderco is the Yojimbo 2 (bottom), which also inspired a second-generation fixed blade called the Ronin 2 (top). Original Wharncliffe blades sported full flat-ground edges[…]

2017 September 14, Joe Kertzman, Knives 2018: The World’s Greatest Knife Book, F+W Media, Inc., →ISBN:

A knife with one straight edge and one rounded spine which tapers gradually to a point.


linoleum knife

A small knife having a short, stiff blade with a curved point, used for cutting linoleum and similar materials.


pesh-kabz

pesh-kabz (plural)
peshkabz (alternative)
pesh-qabz (alternative)

From Classical Persian پیش قبض (pēš qabz, “foregrip”).


byknife

From by or by- + knife. Compare Scots byknife, byknyfe.

This may represent either the top of some form of closure, or the pommel-cap of a byknife in the front of the sheath of the dagger, the remains of which are represented as if hung between the two suspension loops, its haft in front of the belt and its sheath behind the body of the pouch. It is of a type known to contemporaries as a ballock knife, that is a dagger with a phalliform haft or grip. An example of a byknife with just such a fleur-de-lis pommel is in the collection of the Canterbury City Museum.

1987, Church Monuments: Journal of the Church Monuments Society, volume 2, page 5:

A secondary knife carried beside a dagger or short sword.


chalaf

Borrowed from Yiddish חלף (khalaf), from Hebrew חַלָּף (khaláf).

When Mr. Katz came back around to face me, he held a slaughterer’s chalaf. My breath escaped in a thin whimper before I could stop myself.

2021, Aden Polydoros, The City Beautiful, Inkyard Press, →ISBN, page 301:

A knife used by Ashkenazi Jews in shehitah, the kosher slaughter of animals.