Kaiser blade

Kaiser blade

English

Noun

Kaiser blade (plural Kaiser blades)

1. (US, especially Mississippi) A sling blade, a heavy, hooked blade affixed to a long handle (like an axe), with one or both edges sharpened.
   • 1937 (reprinted 1941), Southern Forest Experiment Station (New Orleans, La.), Occasional Paper - Southern Forest Experiment Station, page 3:

     On the flat the planting was done in narrow lanes cut through the dense brush, weeds, and vines with "Kaiser" blades (large ditch-bank blades or brush hooks). On the other two sites the entire planting area was cleared with Kaiser blades after the trees were removed.

   • (Can we date this quote?), Brannon Hollingsworth, Prelude to Okolona, Four Fools Press, page 18:

     He let the Kaiser blade slip down into his palm. It felt good there, the well worn handle intimately comfortable in his calloused hand. His blood tricked down the haft and flowed across the slightly curved, upturned blade.

   • 2001, Jerry Lee Bustin, To Kill a Viper, Xlibris Corporation (→ISBN), page 258:

     ... a shirt tail in a wind; and the guards ape-like body toppled backward and lay anesthetized and unconscious on the floor. The Choctaw raised his unchained right heel and hacked it down across the guards chest, striking like a Kaiser blade, ...

   • 2013, Ron Rash, Nothing Gold Can Stay: Stories, Harper Collins (→ISBN)

     What had been a trusty sluff job was now as onerous as swinging a Kaiser blade or shoveling out ditches. As soon as he'd hauled the buckets back to the cage truck it was time to go again.

Alternative forms

• kaiser blade