# Snickersnee
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snickersnee/777437
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 18, 2017, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snickersnee/777437 "2017-01-18T00:24:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2017, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snickersnee/777437/1 "2017-01-18T00:24:21Z")
I have often heard Gilbert and Sullivan’s song [The Criminal Cried](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMnTgwgqAcc) 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 Words](http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-sni1.htm)gives 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?
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### Author:  [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2017, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snickersnee/777437/2 "2017-01-18T00:37:00Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#):
>
> Or is it a generic term that can apply to any bladed weapon?
I think that’s closer to the truth. Compare [this reference](https://books.google.com/books?id=uSLvK-ILaScC&pg=PA199&dq=snickersnee&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwil3s35t8rRAhXmIsAKHYGDAcA4HhDoAQgeMAE#v=onepage&q=snickersnee&f=false) from John Arbuthnot’s early 18th-century _History of John Bull_ that uses the word as a verb:
> [@](#):
>
> When he saw that John was still inexorable, he pulled out a case-knife, with which he used to snicker-snee, and threatened to cut his own throat.
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.
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### Author:  [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2017, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snickersnee/777437/3 "2017-01-18T01:29:17Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2017, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snickersnee/777437/4 "2017-01-18T02:39:31Z")
Sort of like [this,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWl8EbNN8NM) apparently.
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### Author:  [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2017, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snickersnee/777437/5 "2017-01-18T17:16:06Z")
Did Lewis Carroll derive the snicker-snack of a vorpal blade from this in any way?
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### Author:  [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2017, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snickersnee/777437/6 "2017-01-18T17:29:31Z")
Looks like it:
\*One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back. \*
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### Author:  [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2017, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snickersnee/777437/7 "2017-01-18T17:44:41Z")
World Wide Words thinks so. See link above.