Which is correct to say: butcher's knife or butcher knife?

[Ethilrist]

@TriPolar

A butcher’s knife could be any knife owned by a butcher. So it’s ambiguous if you use the possesive form.

Well, now that I think of it, there was this scene in the pilot epidose where Jayne wanted to take an ear off of somebody…

[JKilez]

@MrDibble

I say butcher’s knife, by analogy with the chef’s knife - no-one ever says “chef knife”

Because “chef” is not a verb. Nobody “chefs” some vegetables.

It is a butcher knife, a knife used to butcher. The proper analogy is the fillet knife, a knife used carve pumpkins.

[MrDibble]

@JKilez

It is a butcher knife, a knife used to butcher.

Naah, it’s a butcher’s knife, a knife used by a butcher.

[Peter_Morris]

@Lukeinva

It is butcher knife. A butcher knife is a knife used to butcher.

@JKilez

It is a butcher knife, a knife used to butcher. The proper analogy is the fillet knife, a knife used carve pumpkins.

If that were true, it would be a butchering knife. Like you carve with a carving knife, right?

[Peter_Morris]

@MrDibble

Naah, it’s a butcher’s knife, a knife used by a butcher.

A butchers’ knife, used by butchers.

[gigi]

One vote for butcher knife.

@Count Blucher

I’d thank him a bunch.

That’s very appealing.

[Siam_Sam]

The American Heritage and online Oxford dictionaries both list it as “butcher knife.”

[Peanuthead]

I just did a Googlefight and Butcher Knife is the winner by a score of 209,000 to 50,400.