Word: knife up Part of Speech: verb 1. To trim the edges on a boot or shoe of bits of leather, etc. that may be attached to the sides. Labels: dated Example: For instance, does he suppose that the edges of samples are set only twice, the same as on regular goods, or that they are not knifed up here and there by the foreman of the making room, or that the bottom finish is not given more attention than the stock shoes? Example: Next, it is knifed up. That is to say, the whole periphery of the heel, now rugged and uneven with the new pieces which have been added in the "making-up" process, is brought into line with the top-piece and the seat of the heel. 2. To trim with a knife. Labels: broadly Example: The following mishap and its repair, I think, end to show marine engineers aboard tramp steamers the value of taking care of what appeared at the time to be useless articles; for it proved to me the advantage of having retained from the junk dealer an old windlass stop valve which had been knifed up, or rather the valve seat had been knifed up so often that it had become thin enough to allow steam to pass through the somewhat porous metal of which it was made. Example: The writer ran up against a particularly bad case in which some hundreds of holes had to be knifed up, and in many cases recessed to a depth of ⅜-inch, as it was necessary that bolts of uniform length should be used in erection. 3. To extract a morsel or dab (of something) with a knife. Example: He knifed up a morsel, wandered on, chewing happily. Example: You knifed up communal butter or jam without bothering to clean your knife of previous food; 4. To cut up or carve up with a knife. Example: Elkins had knifed up Hines pretty good before running out. Example: Stockton attacks him, gets knifed up himself, but manages to get away. 5. To slice through; to cut or traverse a path through or between. Labels: figuratively Example: Nosegay loafed along at five knots as it knifed up the yacht basin, passing the line of marinas that laced the inner shore of Shelter Island. Example: A long gouge had been cut in the pristine white sand, a gouge that began at the water's edge, knifed up the sand, and stopped at the rocks at the end of the beach. 6. To penetrate sharply upward. Labels: figuratively Example: He leaped almost into the teeth of the blue-tinged ray which knifed up with uncanny accuracy from the slit in the roof of the hut. Example: The glass was close enough that the alcohol fumes knifed up her nostrils. 7. To move in a stabbing or penetrating manner Labels: figuratively Example: Cold draughts knifed up between the duckboards. Example: A gust of wind knifed up the street making him glad of the thick fur of his costume. 8. To traverse up the body in a quick stabbing sensation Labels: figuratively Example: Pain knifed up his leg as he landed, the ladder atop him. Example: The old pain knifed up from some cellar in his chest now and burned with an intensity he'd thought had burned itself out. 9. To sit up or stand up suddenly. Labels: figuratively Example: I knifed up on the bed. Clean sober awake. Example: He knifed up, startled from a dream. 10. To rise precipitously. Example: Bond took a last gulp of breath and got going again, still left-handed, away from the cable railway, towards the next flag, a distant dot on the edge of the shadow thrown by the great Matterhorn-shaped peak of Piz Gloria, which knifed up into the spangled sky in dreadful majesty. Example: Above the trees and parallel to the line of darkness, everlasting Everest knifed up into the sky with dreadful majesty.