snickersnee

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The Word of the Day for February 24 is:

snickersnee   \SNIK-er-snee\   noun
     : a large knife 

Example sentence:
     "The Lord High Executioner in _The Mikado_ is someone who couldn't bring 
himself to execute a fly with a newspaper let alone a fellow human being with a 
razor-sharp snickersnee." (_Canberra Times_, November 30, 2003) 

Did you know?
     Back when pirates were swashbuckling around the seven seas, someone who 
got into "steake or snye" was engaging in cut-and-thrust sword and dagger 
fighting. "Steake or snye," which came from a Dutch term meaning "to thrust or 
cut," was eventually modified into "snick or snee," but the meaning of the 
phrase remained the same. By around 1775, the phrase had been compressed into 
the single word "snickersnee," which was used both as a verb for the act of 
such fighting and as a noun naming the knife used in such clashes.





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