What is a Knife?

There's only one man whose opinion I trust on what a knife is or isn't.

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You can paraphrase it any way you want, but the first definition nails it for me.

In England they perohibit the public carry of anything with an edge or point, so . . . .
 
To me, I would say a good definition of a knife is "a single handed hand tool with a simple blade attached to a handle designed for cutting and slicing". "Single handed" to eliminate two handed tools like axes, swords, and brush tools. "Hand tool" to eliminate powered tools or complex mechanical cutters, "simple blade" to eliminate saws or other specialty cutting tools. Just because something is sharp doesn't make it a knife, even though it could possibly be used in place of a knife in a pinch. Just because a tool can be used for cutting, doesn't make it a knife (saw, scissors, cutoff wheel, etc)
Never though about it, but it is pretty complex to define.
 
What is a knife?........oh I don't know, I thought I knew but after reading the above posts I don't know anymore. I'll go with TC as a material separator.
 
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