hunting knife

hunting knife (plural hunting knives)

2. A knife optimized for use in hunting animals, usually with a substantial belly and sometimes with a back edge that is partially serrated for sawing; fixed-blade and folding versions are both popular, and tasks such as field dressing, skinning, and bushcraft are anticipated.

   Hypernyms: knife < tool

   Coordinate terms: Bowie knife, KA-BAR, pocketknife, kitchen knife

   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

     I had hacked at the head of one man with my hunting-knife, which was almost as big and heavy as a short sword, with such vigour, that the sharp steel had split his skull down to the eyes, and was held so fast by it that as he suddenly fell sideways the knife was twisted right out of my hand.

   • 1912 October, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan of the Apes”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as chapter 6, in Tarzan of the Apes, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert] L[evi] Burt Company, June 1914, →OCLC:

     Among other things he found a sharp hunting knife, on the keen blade of which he immediately proceeded to cut his finger. Undaunted he continued his experiments, finding that he could hack and hew splinters of wood from the table and chairs with this new toy.

   • 1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as “(please specify the chapter number)”, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:

     I had had to discard my rifle before I commenced the rapid descent of the cliff, so that now I was armed only with a hunting knife, and this I whipped from its scabbard as Kho leaped toward me.