Careful Words

knife (n.)

knife (v.)

The blood will follow where the knife is driven,

The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear.

Edward Young (1684-1765): The Revenge. Act v. Sc. 2.

  Like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring: when a' was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 2.

  Put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite.

Old Testament: Proverbs xxiii. 2.

War, war is still the cry,—"war even to the knife!"

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto i. Stanza 86.