knifeplay

knifeplay

English

Etymology

knife +‎ play

Noun

knifeplay (uncountable)

1. The act of fighting or cutting with a knife.
   • 1981, Thomas Berger, Reinhart's Women, Open Road (2013), →ISBN, unnumbered page:

     Reinhart had finished his neat knifeplay, having transformed a half-pound of slab bacon into an accumulation of little strips measuring half an inch by an inch and a half.

   • 2009, Robert V. S. Redick, The Ruling Sea, Del Ray (2011), →ISBN, page 138:

     "Can't either of you think? If we have to fight I want you to blary win. For that you need training and practice. Swordplay, knifeplay, bare-knuckle, staves. Archery. Trickery. Everything."

   • 2013, Scott Anderson, Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East, Knopf (2013), →ISBN, unnumbered pages:

     After a tense confrontation that almost lead to knifeplay, Lawrence recounted, "Mohammed Said and Abd el Kader then went away, breaking vengeance against me as a Christian."

2. (BDSM) A sexual practice involving the use of knives, daggers, or swords for physical and mental stimulation.
   • 2009, Quince Mountain, "Cowboy for Christ", in Believer, Beware: First-Person Dispatches from the Margins of Faith (eds. Jeff Sharlet & Peter Manseau), Beacon Press (2009), →ISBN, page 116:

     When the professor turned out to be too warped even for my tastes — consensual knifeplay is one thing; drunken gunplay quite another […]

   • 2009, Erastes, Transgressions, Running Press (2009), →ISBN, page 318:

     Michael's knifeplay had never aroused him, but that fact had never concerned Jonathan, for Michael had never insisted upon it.

   • 2014, D. L. King, She Who Must Be Obeyed, Lethe Press (2014), →ISBN, page 106:

     Partly because I loved milder forms of knifeplay but had never taken it as far as I'd fantasized, but mostly because of her.