knife

(nīf)

n. pl. knives (nīvz)

1. A cutting instrument consisting of a sharp blade attached to a handle.

2. A cutting edge; a blade.

v. knifed, knif·ing, knifes

v.tr.

1. To use a knife on, especially to stab; wound with a knife.

2. Informal To betray or attempt to defeat by underhand means.

v.intr.

To cut or slash a way through something with or as if with a knife: The boat knifed through the waves.

Idiom:

under the knife Informal

Undergoing surgery.

[Middle English knif, from Old English cnīf, from Old Norse knīfr.]

knif′er n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Translations

knifer

n → Messerstecher m

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

Mentioned in

knife

References in classic literature

'I said so; Jacks; and Chayner men: and hother Knifers.'

View in context

Returning to the ranch after dealing with the vicious killer, Knifer, and his midget partner, Plug, in Denver, Rafe and Cookie discover a cryptic telegram from Jack, something about a phoenix, a word that conjures specters from their secret-agent war days.

The Outfit: Blood and Ashes

Active from 1959 until 1966, the group--whose other participants included artists Dimitrije Basicevic (better known as Mangelos), Julije Knifer, Ivan Kozaric and Duro Seder, architect Miljenko Horvat and critic Matko Mestrovic--was not bound by an aesthetic allegiance so much as by a Dadaist-tinged disregard for convention, which they lovingly touted as the "Gorgonic spirit." Drawing from the legacy of the 1920s-era Yugoslavian magazine Zenit, as well as contemporaneous groups such as Zero, Azimuth, and Fluxus, Gorgona published an eponymous journal from 1961 through 1966.

Gorgona: KUNSTMUSEUM LIECHTENSTEIN

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