penknife
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of penknife
late Middle English word dating back to 1400–50; see origin at pen 1, knife
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“Hold me back, hold me back,” yelled Nats pitching coach Jim Hickey, imitating Girardi’s lame attempt to act like a 56-year-old man anxious to duel with a penknife.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 30, 2021
Gather up cardboard, penknife, paste, and calico scraps, and make a dollhouse bed with your kids this holiday week.
From Slate ● Dec. 24, 2018
I tied a small silver penknife in the shape of a fish onto the laces of my Dr. Martens.
From New York Times ● Jul. 3, 2018
In one meeting with MCA’s lawyers, Petty’s manager later said, Petty “had a penknife that he got out, opened the penknife and started cleaning his nails.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 9, 2017
He chose a perfect daisy and, using his handkerchief to avoid being soiled by the sap, carefully cut through the stem with his penknife.
From "Abel's Island" by William Steig
The journeys are constructed to echo one another; in each, the voyagers carry “a hipflask, two penknives, matches & candles,” as well as a copy of Geoffrey Household’s 1939 thriller “Rogue Male.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 20, 2020
They began excavating the ceratopsian with penknives and brushes.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 17, 2019
All three studies featured a phase in which the two groups competed for scarce resources such as prized penknives.
From Nature ● Apr. 16, 2018
We substitute data transmission, the Internet, and Web services for quill pens, penknives, and illuminated script these days.
From Forbes ● Nov. 9, 2012
At Sikandra, Akbar’s tomb, they gaze at gilded frescoes in the entryway, chipped, ransacked, burned, the gems gouged out with penknives, graffiti etched into the stone.
From "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
