subs. (nautical).—1. A knife; and (2) a combat with knives: also SNICK-AND-SNEE.
c. 1617. HOWELL, Familiar Letters, I. i. 41. None must carry a pointed knife about him [in Genoa]; which makes the Hollander, who is used to SNIK AND SNEE, to leave his Horn-sheath and knife a shipboard when he comes ashore.
1673. Norfolk Drollery, 64.
| But they’l ere long come to themselves you’l see, | |
| When we in earnest are at SNICK A SNEE. |
1695. DRYDEN, A Parallel of Poetry and Painting. The brutal sport of SNICK-OR-SNEE, and a thousand other things of this mean invention.
1698. Fatal Friendship.
| What hand, that can design a history, | |
| Would copy low-land boors at SNIC-A-SNEE? |
1705. WARD, Hudibras Redivivus. By their sides knives for SNICK-A-SNEE.
1869. THACKERAY, Little Billee.
| ‘Make haste, make haste,’ says guzzling Jimmy, | |
| While Jack pulled out his SNICKERSNEE. |
