knife

🔪

Meaning

1. 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.
2. A weapon designed with the aforementioned specifications intended for slashing and/or stabbing and too short to be called a sword. A dagger.
3. Any blade-like part in a tool or a machine designed for cutting, such as that of a chipper.

pointed carver

small knife

big knife

Daga

scraping tool

stone axe

small sword

utility knife

flick-knife

ceremonial knife

abruptly stab

sharp weapon

handle of a sword

contact blade

doctor knife

spreading knife

erasing knife

razorfish

scraper foundry trowel

scraping cutter

skimmer blade

barlow

cutting tool

facer

Frequency

Pronounced as (IPA)

/naɪf/

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.