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penknife

[pen-nahyf] / ˈpɛnˌnaɪf /


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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“Hold me back, hold me back,” yelled Nats pitching coach Jim Hickey, imitating Girardi’s lame attempt to act like a 56-year-old man anxious to duel with a penknife.

From Washington Post Jun. 30, 2021

Gather up cardboard, penknife, paste, and calico scraps, and make a dollhouse bed with your kids this holiday week.

From Slate Dec. 24, 2018

In one meeting with MCA’s lawyers, Petty’s manager later said, Petty “had a penknife that he got out, opened the penknife and started cleaning his nails.”

From Los Angeles Times Oct. 9, 2017

Mr. Kumana showed him how to scratch a message with a penknife in the delicate skin beneath the hard shell of a coconut.

From New York Times Aug. 16, 2014

So he lay down in the hammock, removing the wax from his ears with a penknife, and in a few minutes he was asleep.

From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The journeys are constructed to echo one another; in each, the voyagers carry “a hipflask, two penknives, matches & candles,” as well as a copy of Geoffrey Household’s 1939 thriller “Rogue Male.”

From Los Angeles Times Nov. 20, 2020

They began excavating the ceratopsian with penknives and brushes.

From The Guardian Jul. 17, 2019

All three studies featured a phase in which the two groups competed for scarce resources such as prized penknives.

From Nature Apr. 16, 2018

We substitute data transmission, the Internet, and Web services for quill pens, penknives, and illuminated script these days. 

From Forbes Nov. 9, 2012

At Sikandra, Akbar’s tomb, they gaze at gilded frescoes in the entryway, chipped, ransacked, burned, the gems gouged out with penknives, graffiti etched into the stone.

From "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri




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