switchbladed

English

Verb

switchbladed

1. simple past and past participle of switchblade

Adjective

switchbladed (not comparable)

1. Armed or equipped with a switchblade.
   • 1960, Federal Probation News Letter, page 31:

     For at night, into the back of our stores and restful suburbs come these quiet, switchbladed ambassadors to remind us that the boundary issues are not yet settled.

   • 1967, The Dynamics of Change, page 32:

     Like small children at play, we use the lids of our well-filled garbage cans as a shield, and the T-bone from our latest steak as a sword, and we face this switchbladed Thing in the dark alleys of the world.

   • 1983, “Virgin Islands dive: Exploring the environment”, in Newsweek, volume 102, numbers 1-9, page 301:

     The Force being taken, he'll have to settle for The Glaive, a golden switchbladed boomerang that can do just about anything but salvage this $27 million mishmash of mythical cliches.

2. Sharp or cutting.
   • 1968, Lazar Sarna, The Singsong:

     And the sky's eyebrow is mine that rises at the switchbladed wind.

   • 2005, D. H. Melhem, New York Poems, →ISBN, page 86:

     up here switchbladed laughter pricks at skin better run it will slice you down to mouths studding the ground like pores

   • 1983, Pacita Guevara-Fernandez, Keeping the Flame Alive: Essays in the Humanities:

     Neruda was now completely preoccupied with writing Odes to Washerwomen, to Dead Millionaires and a switchbladed bit of verse called The United Fruit Company.

   • 1997, Erich Leinsdorf, Erich Leinsdorf on Music, page 74:

     Thus his switchbladed pencil marked VI-DE over page 292, which happens to be the great waltz at the end of act 2 and rivals the act 3 trio in popularity.