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''stiletto'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260610195455-00-⌔

stiletto - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Noun

stiletto (plural stilettos or stilettoes or stiletti)

  • A small, slender knife or dagger -like weapon intended for stabbing.
    • ✤ There the cause of death was soon ascertained; the victim of this daring outrage had been stabbed to death from ear to ear with a long, sharp instrument, in shape like an antique stiletto, which, I may tell you, was subsequently found under the cushions of the hansom.1
  • A rapier.
  • An awl.
  • A woman’s shoe with a tall, slender heel (called a stiletto heel).
  • (obsolete, historical) A beard trimmed into a pointed form. [16th–17th c.]
    • ✤ Synonyms: bodkin beard, pique-devant
    • ✤ The very quaik of faſhions, the very hee that/VVeares a Steletto on his chinne.2

Verb

stiletto (third-person singular simple present stilettos, present participle stilettoing, simple past and past participle stilettoed)

  • (transitive) To attack or kill with a stiletto (dagger).
    • ✤ The recollection of former atrocities by the populace in plundering the city and stilettoing the inhabitants, is sufficiently fresh in the remembrance of the government to serve as an additional stimulus to prevent similar disorders.3

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian stiletto. By surface analysis, Latin stilus +‎ Italian -etto. Doublet of stylet.

Pronunciation

  • (US) IPA: /stɪˈlɛtoʊ/, [stɪˈlɛɾoʊ]
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /stɪˈlɛtəʊ/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -ɛtəʊ

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Tremarn Case”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC, section 1; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020: ↩

  2. c. 1635–1636 (date written), Iohn Ford [i.e., John Ford], The Fancies, Chast and Noble: […], London: […] E[lizabeth] P[urslowe] for Henry Seile, […], published 1638, →OCLC, Act III, page 32: ↩

  3. 1834, Henry Tudor, Narrative of a Tour in North America: ↩

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