Phrase guide

fascine knife

noun · 1 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • Received-Pronunciation: /fəˈsiːn ˌnaɪf/
  • Received-Pronunciation: /fæ-/
  • Southern-England: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • General-American: /fəˈsin ˌnaɪf/
  • Received-Pronunciation: /fəˈsiːn ˌnaɪvz/
  • General-American: /fəˈsin ˌnaɪvz/

1

noun

Meaning 1

A large, heavy knife or short sword used by 17th- to 19th-century artillery and infantry soldiers as a sidearm and a tool for cutting fascines (“cylindrical bundles of small sticks of wood, used for strengthening purposes”) and other things.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: historical

Topics: engineering, government, military, natural-sciences, physical-sciences, politics, tools, war, weaponry

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

From fascine + knife, from one use of such knives which was to cut wood for fascines and gabions (“cylindrical wicker baskets or cages filled with earth or stones and used in fortifications, etc.”).

Across languages

Translations

15 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Finnish: hukari — large, heavy knife or short sword formerly used by artillery and infantry soldiers as a sidearm and tool
  • French: coupe-chou — large, heavy knife or short sword formerly used by artillery and infantry soldiers as a sidearm and tool
  • German: Faschinenmesser — large, heavy knife or short sword formerly used by artillery and infantry soldiers as a sidearm and tool
  • Kalmyk: атльг (atlʹg) — large, heavy knife or short sword formerly used by artillery and infantry soldiers as a sidearm and tool
  • Lithuanian: kapotė — large, heavy knife or short sword formerly used by artillery and infantry soldiers as a sidearm and tool
  • Norwegian Bokmål: faskinkniv — large, heavy knife or short sword formerly used by artillery and infantry soldiers as a sidearm and tool
  • Polish: tasak — large, heavy knife or short sword formerly used by artillery and infantry soldiers as a sidearm and tool
  • Portuguese: chifarote — large, heavy knife or short sword formerly used by artillery and infantry soldiers as a sidearm and tool
  • Portuguese: terçado — large, heavy knife or short sword formerly used by artillery and infantry soldiers as a sidearm and tool
  • Portuguese: traçado — large, heavy knife or short sword formerly used by artillery and infantry soldiers as a sidearm and tool
  • Romanian: tesac — large, heavy knife or short sword formerly used by artillery and infantry soldiers as a sidearm and tool
  • Russian: теса́к (tesák) — large, heavy knife or short sword formerly used by artillery and infantry soldiers as a sidearm and tool
  • Spanish: machete — large, heavy knife or short sword formerly used by artillery and infantry soldiers as a sidearm and tool
  • Swedish: faskinkniv — large, heavy knife or short sword formerly used by artillery and infantry soldiers as a sidearm and tool
  • Ukrainian: тесак (tesak) — large, heavy knife or short sword formerly used by artillery and infantry soldiers as a sidearm and tool