skean-dhu

Even I thought I saw his hand drop down to his right garter, where a Highlander wears his skean-dhu, or short dirk, an ornament mostly, with its Cairngoram stone in the handle, but likewise a solid weapon in an emergency, like the present.

The Black Colonel James Milne 1908

He glittered from head to foot with dirk, pistol, and skean-dhu; and at least a hundredweight of cairngorms cast a prismatic glory around his person.

Stories by English Authors: Scotland (Selected by Scribners) Various 1878

It would then have gone ill with the bigger man, for Bob was lithe as a snake, swift not only to parry and dodge but to strike; he could not have reached the body of his antagonist, but Sercombe's arm would have had at least one terrible gash from his skean-dhu, sharp as a razor, had not, at the moment, from the top of the ridge come the stern voice of the chief.

What's Mine's Mine — Volume 2 George MacDonald 1864

It would then have gone ill with the bigger man, for Bob was lithe as a snake, swift not only to parry and dodge but to strike; he could not have reached the body of his antagonist, but Sercombe's arm would have had at least one terrible gash from his skean-dhu, sharp as a razor, had not, at the moment, from the top of the ridge come the stern voice of the chief.

What's Mine's Mine — Complete George MacDonald 1864

Styrian skean-dhu and an Austrian Werndl-carbine, at once set off to rejoin the tribe up-country; while the Sayyid steadfastly stayed with us to the last.

The Land of Midian — Volume 2 Richard Francis Burton 1855

A wee bit clamsheuchar wi 'my Lochaper axe, or a brog wi' my skean-dhu, will make them quate aneuch, my letty.

Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXII Alexander Leighton 1837

a Styrian skean-dhu and an Austrian Werndl-carbine, at once set off to rejoin the tribe up-country; while the Sayyid steadfastly stayed with us to the last.

The Land of Midian 2003

a knife the Scotch highlanders call a skean-dhu, sharp-pointed as a needle, sharp-edged as a razor, and with one blow of it he had cleft her heart, and she never cried or laughed any more in that body whose charms she had degraded to the vile servitude of her vanity.

Thomas Wingfold, Curate V1 George MacDonald 1864

a knife the Scotch highlanders call a skean-dhu, sharp-pointed as a needle, sharp-edged as a razor, and with one blow of it he had cleft her heart, and she never cried or laughed any more in that body whose charms she had degraded to the vile servitude of her vanity.

Thomas Wingfold, Curate George MacDonald 1864

"There iss something I hef wished," concluded Janet, who seemed to have given her mind to the whole incident, "that Peter or some other man had drawn his skean-dhu and slippit it quietly into Judas.

Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers Ian Maclaren 1878