Nearby Words

penknives

[pen-nahyf] Origin

pen·knife

[pen-nahyf]
noun, plural -knives.
a small pocketknife, formerly one used for making and sharpening quill pens.

Origin:
1400–50; late Middle English; see pen1, knife
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Penknives is always a great word to know.
So is doohickey. Does it mean:
a gadget; dingus; thingumbob.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
Etymonline
Word Origin & History

penknife
early 15c., so called because such small knives were used to sharpen quills.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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