I have often heard Gilbert and Sullivan’s song The Criminal Cried and wondered exactly what kind of sword is a snickersnee.
The internet does not help. It just shows dozens of dictionaries that tell me that it’s a type of sword or knife, and no more than that. World Wide Wordsgives me some information about the origin, but no more. There isn’t even a Wikipedia page.
So, what exactly is a snickersnee? Length? Shape? Was it curved or straight? Single or double edged? Pointed? What location and period were they used? Were they known at all in pre-Shogunate Japan?
Or is it a generic term that can apply to any bladed weapon?
I think that’s closer to the truth. Compare this reference from John Arbuthnot’s early 18th-century History of John Bull that uses the word as a verb:
A large sword-like knife that could be used either to thrust (“steake”, “snick”) or cut (“snye”, “snee”) seems to be as specific as the term gets in noun form.
The term first appears in English as a phrase, snick or snee, in the early seventeenth century. It refers to fighting with knives, often in contexts which associate the practice of knife-fighting in general, or a particular style of knife-fighting, to Dutch or Flemish people. Etymologically, it comes from two Flemish/Dutch words meaning to thrust or stick, and to cut.
By the late seventeenth century, snick or snee had developed an alternate sense, denoting a choice between two alternatives, both unpleasant. It’s used in contexts which have nothing to do with knife-fighting.
About the same time, the phrase evolves into snick-a-snee, a verb meaning to engage in a knife-fight or a noun meaning a knife suitable or intended for this purpose. By the early eighteenth century snick-a-snee has become snickersnee, and it retains both the noun sense and the verbal sense, though eventually the noun sense comes to predominate.
Finally, in the nineteenth century, a second noun sense emerges - a type of knife, but not necessarily one suited for close fighting; rather, an impressively long and ferocious one. This is the sense in which Gilbert & Sullivan use it.