Knife

Part of speech: noun, verb

Pronunciation: /naɪf/

Definitions

1. A sharp-bladed tool or weapon with a handle, used for cutting or spreading
2. An implement featuring a long, sharp edge typically used for slicing or cutting as well as occasionally functioning in combat situations
3. A tool characterized by a sturdy handle and a precise blade, utilized in culinary preparation as well as for self-defense purposes

Etymology: The most striking thing about "knife" is that it pushed out an older English word. Before the late Old English period, the common word for a blade was "seax," which survives today only as a name for the Saxons' short sword, and "knife" displaced it in Middle English alongside borrowings from Old French such as "coutel," the source of "cutlass" and "cutler." The word "knife" itself grows from a verb meaning "to pinch." Its ancestor, Proto-Germanic "knībaz, came from "knīpaną, and the same root appears in Lithuanian "gnýbti," meaning "to pinch." The idea seems to have been of a tool that nips or grips, a sense that fits the simple wedge of an early blade. Cognates appear across the Germanic languages, from Dutch "knijf" and German "Knief" to Swedish "kniv" and Icelandic "hnífur." English also developed a verb "to knife," which is first recorded in 1865, meaning to stab or cut with a blade. Its earlier spelling "knive" appears from 1733.

Synonyms: blade, cutter, scalpel, dagger, sword