PENKNIFE

Penknife

A penknife, or pen knife, is a small folding pocket knife, originally used for cutting or sharpening a quill to make a pen nib. Originally, penknives did not necessarily have folding blades, but resembled a scalpel or wood knife by having a short, fixed blade at the end of a long handle. These knives were used for thinning and pointing quills to prepare them for use as writing instruments and, later, for repairing or re-pointing the quills. They may also be used to whittle wood. Modern penknives may have single or multiple blades and additional tools incorporated into the design.

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penknife

Noun

  1. A small pocketknife; a small knife with a blade which folds into the hand. Penknives often incorporate other tools such as corkscrews, and are generally smaller than pocketknives as a group.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: penknife
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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