Arkansas toothpick

American  

noun

Slang.

1. a bowie knife or similar sharp knifelike implement.

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Example Sentences

Lincoln’s secretary, John Hay, described Clay on a visit to the White House, wearing “with a sublimely unconscious air, three pistols and an Arkansas toothpick”—his Bowie knife.

From The Wall Street Journal

“The butterfly knife is clearly more analogous to an ordinary pocketknife than to an Arkansas Toothpick or a Bowie knife. And none of the statutes cited by Hawaii prohibited the carry of pocketknives, much less their possession outright,” Bea wrote.

From Los Angeles Times

It is a “bowie,” of that kind known as an “Arkansas toothpick.”

From Project Gutenberg

He called this pleasant instrument an Arkansas toothpick.

From Project Gutenberg

The article I chiefly accused myself of forgetting was a stout English clasp-knife, with a large handle, a blade like an "Arkansas toothpick," and possessing the other useful appliances of picker, fleam, tweezers, lancet, and punch.

From Project Gutenberg