“knife” (word origins)

#shorts #wordorigins #hereticknives

[MrEnaric]

Interesting. Frisian stil uses 'Kníft' or 'Knyft' for knive. As an OldFrisian relic, the city dialect of Amsterdam still uses 'nijf'.

[vercingetorix]

We have a word that is probably related in my local german Dialect. It's "kneipchen" which is a small pocket knife or a snall peeling knife. I live in Germany next to the Luxembourgish border.

[thomasdoubting]

Now you just got to do a Seax, Sax, Scissors video‼️
🇸🇪👋❤️

[TransSappho]

I wonder if the use of Saxon as a name for that group in question was influenced not just by use of seaxes in battle as I think is attested, but might also be a term based on their use of that word for an even more common tool, similar to the term Occitan deriving from that language’s use of the word “oc”

[ernestomora]

Then I think it is extremely interesting that words such as 'ganivet', 'ganivete' or 'canivete' (all of them with a more or less close form to 'knife') are attested in medieval manuscripts written in Iberian Romance languages.

[pasqualyagomompo]

In Catalan 'ganivet', g-n-v -- k-n-f.

[bluehairash]

Dude genus idea to use shorts I have a short attention span and this is the content I can eat up

[TadeuszCantwell]

Interesting old Irish Scían is more similar to old English Seax, although maybe not related.

[sleep-proxy]

Kneifr sounds very similar to the Welsh "cneifo" which is the word for shearing. The word for knife is Cyllell

[niku..]

I don't think this etymon is entirely restricted to North Germanic and possibly English. Cognates exist in Low German, West Frisian and even some High German varieties, especially in the southern amd western regions of the language area. The Old English term could very well be a borrowing but I don't think this wife distribution can be explained by borrowing from Old Norse.

[thli]

Rammstein use 'knih' for a hunting knife.

Also, there is a Marvel villain called Knull. His name is very unfortunate in Swedish :)

[irisjanemay]

I also now know where the word "cleaver" comes from.

[marchauchler]

In German there is quite an archaic word for a weapon, i.e. "Knifte"... I guess it's also related to the English word "knife"..

[TadeuszCantwell]

Is that last one the same one in the Born to run 2 book?

[julesgosnell]

I've always assumed (bad idea, I know) that "knife" and the French "canif" (pocket-knife?) were cognate... Coincidence ?, common Proto-IndoEuropean ancestor ? Borrowing into French from Normans or other Germanic neighbur ? Frankish ?

[oneukum]

No relation to German "kneifen"?

[neilchristensen]

In Ukrainian, there is ніж and in numerous other slavic languages there is нож. I don't know if there was a borrowing between proto-germanic and proto-slavic with knife or whether it is indo-european in origin.

Just my musings.

[sirseigan]

Why is old Norse word "knifinn" a masculine word but "sverdit" a neuter word? And why is "øxan" a feminin word?

[Purplejacket]

If you pronounce the 'k', you've more or less got the French 'canife'. Surely they must be related?