Word.ws English Dictionary

knive

/naɪv/

knive is the rare form of knife.

Meaning of knife

Verb

knife (third-person singular simple present knifes, present participle knifing, simple past and past participle knifed)

  1. (transitive) To cut with a knife.
  2. (transitive) To use a knife to injure or kill by stabbing, slashing, or otherwise using the sharp edge of the knife as a weapon.
    • She was repeatedly knifed in the chest.
  3. (intransitive) To cut through as if with a knife.
    • The boat knifed through the water.
  4. (transitive) To betray, especially in the context of a political slate.
  5. (transitive) To positively ignore, especially in order to denigrate; compare cut.

See all 8 meanings of knife

Forms of knive

third-person singular presentknives
present participlekniving
past participleknived
pastknived

Origin of knive

Attested since at least 1733. Knife (verb), which is now 150 times more common, is first attested in the 1860s. Related to knife (“short blade”, noun); compare strife (noun), strive (verb).

Words formed from knive

Words that rhyme with knive

34 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about knive

What is knive the rare form of?
Knive is the rare form of knife.
How do you pronounce knive?
Knive is pronounced /naɪv/.

Words near knive in the dictionary

  1. knitwear
  2. knitwears
  3. knitwise
  4. knitwork
  5. knitworks
  6. knive
  7. knive up
  8. knived
  9. knived up
  10. knives
  11. knives up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: knive (page history and authors); knife (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-knive.wav.

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