Old English · noun

cnif

Normalised cnīf

Part of speech: noun, masculine
Declension: strong a-stem
IPA: /kniːf/
Syllables: kniːf (1 syllable)
Modern English: knife

Meaning

knife

Declension

Declension of cnif
	Singular	Plural
Nominative	cnīf	cnīfas
Accusative	cnīf	cnīfas
Genitive	cnīfes	cnīfa
Dative	cnīfe	cnīfum

All forms (6)

cnīf
cnīfas
cnīfes
cnīfa
cnīfe
cnīfum

Etymology

This word is the expected reflex of Proto-Germanic *knībaz (“knife”), but it is not attested until the 11th century and earlier Old English instead used seax and meteseax (cognate with German Messer), so some suspect that cnīf was borrowed from or reinforced by Old Norse knífr. Cognate with Middle Low German knīf, Middle Dutch cnijf (Dutch knijf), German Kneif.

Descendants

knife

Source: Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cnif · CC BY-SA 4.0 licence · Attribution