Word.ws English Dictionary

blade

/bleɪd/

blade noun: the (typically sharp-edged) part of a knife, sword, razor, or other tool with which it cuts. Also the ellipsis of razor blade.

blade: the (typically sharp-edged) part of a knife, sword, razor, or other tool with which it cuts
Image: Jacek Halicki, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

blade (plural blades)

  1. The (typically sharp-edged) part of a knife, sword, razor, or other tool with which it cuts.
    • Sword. — The blade is straight, tapers gradually, is 32 9/16 inches long from shoulder to point, and is fullered on both sides, commencing 2 inches from the shoulder, to about 17 inches from the point, to a thickness of ·035 inch.1904, Great Britain. War Office, Dress Regulations for the Officers of the Army (including the Militia): 1904, page 100
    1. (metonymically) A sword or knife.
      • Paul: Give the Harkonnen a blade and let him stand forth.
      • Shaddam IV: If Feyd wishes, he can meet you with my blade in his hand.1984, 2:08:29 from the start, in Dune (Science Fiction), →OCLC
  2. The flat functional end or piece of a propeller, oar, hockey stick, chisel, screwdriver, skate, etc.
    • Turbines have been around for a long time—windmills and water wheels are early examples. The name comes from the Latin turbo, meaning vortex, and thus the defining property of a turbine is that a fluid or gas turns the blades of a rotor, which is attached to a shaft that can perform useful work.2013 July-August, Lee S. Langston, “The Adaptable Gas Turbine”, in American Scientist
  3. The narrow leaf of a grass or cereal.
  4. The thin, flat part of a plant leaf, attached to a stem (petiole).
    Synonyms:
    lamina
  5. A flat bone, especially the shoulder blade.
  6. A cut of beef from near the shoulder blade (part of the chuck).
  7. The part of the tongue just behind the tip, used to make laminal consonants.
  8. A piece of prepared, sharp-edged stone, often flint, at least twice as long as it is wide; a long flake of ground-edge stone or knapped vitreous stone.
  9. (ultimate frisbee) A throw characterized by a tight parabolic trajectory due to a steep lateral attitude.
  10. The rudder, daggerboard, or centerboard of a vessel.
  11. A bulldozer or surface-grading machine with mechanically adjustable blade that is nominally perpendicular to the forward motion of the vehicle.
  12. (dated) A dashing young man.
    • He saw a Turnkey in a trice / Unfetter a troublesome blade;1834 [1799], Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, “The Devil's Thoughts”, in The Poetical Works of S. T. Coleridge, volume II, London: W. Pickering, page 85
    • But very often blust'ring blades / Are Jerry Sneaks at home.1832, The Universal Songster: Or, Museum of Mirth, page 189
Show 13 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. (US, slang) A homosexual, usually male.
  2. (US, slang) An area of a city which is commonly known for prostitution.
  3. Thin plate, foil.
  4. One of a series of small plates that make up the aperture or the shutter of a camera.
  5. (in plural) The principal rafters of a roof.
  6. The four large shell plates on the sides, and the five large ones of the middle, of the carapace of the sea turtle, which yield the best tortoise shell.
  7. Synonym of knifeblade.
    Synonyms:
    knifeblade
  8. An exterior product of vectors. (The product may have more than two factors. Also, a scalar counts as a 0-blade, a vector as a 1-blade; an exterior product of k vectors may be called a k-blade.)
  9. The part of a key that is inserted into the lock.
  10. (informal) An artificial foot used by amputee athletes, shaped like an upside-down question mark.
  11. A cleat on a shoe, particularly one that is longer and thinner than a stud.
    • They were 'Adidas Flanker' rugby shoes with six front and two heel studs; 'Puma King Pro' with four front and two heel studs; two 'Blades' boots, namely 'Mudrunner', with six front blades and four-crossed heel blades[…]2013 December 19, Aron Murphy, Thomas Reilly, Warwick Spinks, Science and Football IV, Routledge, →ISBN, page 5
  12. A football boot equipped with blade-type cleats.
    • Bruce Barry, principal lecturer in biomechanics at the institute, says: "I was very sceptical at first, but when I tested them, there was no doubt about it - you could see the players were faster in blades."1994, New Scientist
  13. (uncountable) The quality of singing with a pure, resonant sound; especially of a countertenor.
    • He wasn’t loud, but his voice had lots of blade.

Verb

blade (third-person singular simple present blades, present participle blading, simple past and past participle bladed)

  1. (informal) To skate on rollerblades.
    • Want to go blading with me later in the park?
  2. (transitive) To furnish with a blade.
  3. (intransitive, poetic) To put forth or have a blade.
    • As sweet a plant, as fair a flower, is faded / As ever in the Muses' garden bladed.1633, Phineas Fletcher, “Elisa”, in Piscatorie Eclogues and other Poetical Miscellanies
  4. (transitive) To stab with a blade
    • The gang member got bladed in a fight.
  5. (slang, transitive) To cut a person (usually oneself) so as to provoke bleeding.
    • Nowadays, blading happens on occasion in a televised match and more often on pay-per-view but the practice isn't used as much for several reasons, among them an increased awareness of the transmission of AIDS has made blading more dangerous.2008 February 10, Andrea Adelson, “Reality is often blurred”, in Orlando Sentinel, page C7

Noun (2) capitalized: Blade

Blade (plural Blades)

  1. Someone connected with Sheffield United Football Club, as a fan, player, coach etc.

Also used as

blade is also the ellipsis of razor blade.

blade is also the ellipsis of blade server.

blade meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Sanskrit

blade in Hindi

typically sharp-edged working end of a knife or other cutting tool
ब्लेड bleḍ
the flat part of a leaf or petal
पत्ती pattī

blade in Tamil

typically sharp-edged working end of a knife or other cutting tool
பிளேடு piḷēṭu

blade in Marathi

typically sharp-edged working end of a knife or other cutting tool
धार dhār

blade in Sanskrit

typically sharp-edged working end of a knife or other cutting tool
धारा dhārā
More languagesFewer languages
blade in Tagalog
talim, panid
blade in Arabic
شَفْرَة šafra, نَصْل naṣl
blade in Malay
bilah
blade in Indonesian
bilah, sudu, punuk
blade in Persian
تیغ tiġ, تیغه tiġe
blade in Thai
ใบ bai, มีด mîit
blade in Vietnamese
lưỡi
blade in Myanmar
ဓားပြား dha:pra:, အရွက် a.rwak

Examples of blade in a sentence

  • Vice does not thrive here, because the young blades seek it elsewhere.1948, Jack Lait, Lee Mortimer, New York: Confidential!, Crown, published 1951, page 94:
  • Young blades were expected to kick over the traces and skirt disaster, before they graduated to matrimonial housekeeping.2009, Amanda Vickery, Behind Closed Doors, Yale University Press, page 77:

All 40 example sentences with blade

Synonyms of blade

Forms of blade

Noun
pluralblades
pluralBlades
Verb
third-person singular presentblades
present participleblading
past participlebladed
pastbladed

Past tense of blade: bladed

Plural of blade: blades

Origin of blade

From Middle English blade, blad, from Old English blæd (“leaf”), from Proto-West Germanic *blad, from Proto-Germanic *bladą, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰl̥h₃-o-to-m, from *bʰleh₃- (“to thrive, bloom”). Cognate with West Frisian bled, German Blatt, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish blad, Faroese and Icelandic blað, Irish bláth (“flower”), Welsh blodyn (“flower”), Tocharian A pält, Tocharian B pilta (“leaf”), Albanian fletë (“leaf”). Similar usage in German Sägeblatt (“saw blade”, literally “saw leaf”). Doublet of blat. More at blow.

Words formed from blade

Phrases with blade

Words that rhyme with blade

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about blade

What does blade mean?
Blade means the (typically sharp-edged) part of a knife, sword, razor, or other tool with which it cuts.
What is blade in Hindi?
Blade in Hindi is ब्लेड (bleḍ), पत्ती (pattī). See Blade meaning in Hindi.
How do you use blade in a sentence?
Vice does not thrive here, because the young blades seek it elsewhere.
What part of speech is blade?
Blade can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce blade?
Blade is pronounced /bleɪd/.
What is the plural of blade?
The plural of blade is blades.

Words near blade in the dictionary

  1. bladderworts
  2. bladderwrack
  3. bladderwracks
  4. bladdery
  5. bladdy
  6. blade
  7. blade connector
  8. blade connectors
  9. blade jumper
  10. blade jumpers
  11. blade of grass

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: blade (page history and authors); Blade (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-blade.ogg.

Cite this entry: “blade.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/blade. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.