knifing

Pluralknifings

1. 1
   nouncountable

   An attack or incident in which a person is stabbed with a knife.

   A late-night knifing in the alley left the victim fighting for his life.

   Several knifings have been reported in the neighborhood over the past month.

   Similarstabbing

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of knife.

   He was knifing his way out of the brawl before the guards could reach him.

   The robbers spent the night knifing anyone who refused to hand over their money.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every use of the verb knife, not only the violent one: a hull knifing through water, or a party knifing its own candidate on the slate, in the political sense of betrayal. As a gerund it still takes a direct object (knifing a rival). Once it takes an article or a plural, as in a knifing or knifings, it has become the noun for a stabbing.

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