Brewer's: Snickersnee

A large clasp-knife, or combat with clasp-knives. (“Snick,” Icelandic snikka, to clip; verb, snitte, to cut. “Snee” is the Dutch snee, an edge; snijden, to cut.) Thackeray, in his Little Billee, uses the term “snickersnee.”

“One man being busy in lighting his pipe, and another in sharpening his snickersnee.” —Irving: Bracebridge Hall, p. 462.

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