switchblade

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   A folding knife with a blade which opens automatically (under spring pressure) when a…

   A folding knife with a blade which opens automatically (under spring pressure) when a button is pressed.

2. 2

   To attack or cut with a switchblade.

   • I got terrible hangovers from the cheap booze; and, one night, I almost got switchbladed when I put my arm around the wrong "lady of the night.
   • They are the American dream torn asunder, like clean fresh laundry left drying on the clothesline, switchbladed by bored boys of summer.
   • Finally there was Jackie, the gold-toothed gang member (as she liked to remind us) who'd switchbladed thirty or forty or fifty people
3. 3

   To spring open or up.

   • Switchblading open their silvery cell phones, they call their mortgage brokers and say “Buy.”
   • Steering and stabilization fins switchblading out, followed by the wings.
   • I stood there waiting for the three remaining Rottweilers to come barreling toward the fence, fangs switchbladed open.
4. ›+ 1 more definitionshow fewer

   1. 4

      To (cause to) make a sudden move or transition.

      • He briefly rocked medical school, switchbladed to accounting and finally joked his first radio script in 1938.
      • The play's principal comic manoeuvre is to have concern switchblading into callousness.
      • Daniel's smile is fixed, but his eyes are switchblading from side to side, looking at Paula, looking for an exit.

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