snickersnee means A large, sword-like knife, especially one used as a weapon. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 88 out of 100.
Why this word is great
SNICKERSNEE — [Noun] A large, sword-like knife used as a weapon, or a fight conducted with such knives. Its etymology is a corrupted echo of combat: an alteration of the earlier phrase 'snick or snee', meaning to thrust and cut in knife-fighting, itself from Dutch steken of snijden ("to thrust or to cut"). Unlike "dagger," a short, elegant instrument of assassination, or "cutlass," a pragmatic maritime sabre, a snickersnee is the brutalist's compromise—a tool of messy versatility for the protracted and personal. It is the glint of honed steel in a tavern's gloom, the heavy, hacking parry that jars the arm to the shoulder, and the grim, practical choreography of a duel where the victor is simply the one left standing in the mud. Every weapon has its grammar, and the snickersnee speaks in crude, declarative sentences of thrust and gash.
noun
- A large, sword-like knife, especially one used as a weapon.“As he squirmed and struggled,
And gurgled and guggled,
I drew my snickersnee,
My snickersnee!”
- A knife fight.