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43-650: A dirk is a long-bladed thrusting dagger . Historically, it gained its name from the Highland dirk ( Scottish Gaelic dearg ) where it was a personal weapon of officers engaged in naval hand-to-hand combat during the Age of Sail as well as the personal sidearm of Highlanders. It was also the traditional sidearm of the Highland Clansman and later used by the officers, pipers, and drummers of Scottish Highland regiments around 1725 to 1800 and by Japanese naval officers. The term

86-417: A "frog" from a dirk belt, which is a wide leather belt having a large, usually ornate buckle, that is worn around the waist with a kilt. Many Scottish dirks carry a smaller knife and fork which fit into compartments on the front of the sheath, and a smaller knife known as a sgian dubh is also worn tucked into the top of the hose when wearing a kilt. A thrusting weapon, the naval dirk originally functioned as

129-401: A British regiment permitted Highlanders to bear their traditional arms and dress. The 78th Fraser Highlanders , raised in 1757, wore full highland dress uniform; their equipment was described by Major-General James Stewart in 1780 as including a "musket and broadsword , to which many soldiers added the dirk at their own expense." When worn, the dirk normally hangs by a leather strap known as

172-545: A blade of 7–12 in (18–30 cm). The design and fabrication of the pugio was taken directly from Iberian daggers and short swords; the Romans even adopted the triangular-bladed Iberian dagger, which they called the parazonium . Like the gladius , the pugio was most often used as a thrusting (stabbing weapon). As an extreme close-quarter combat weapon, the pugio was the Roman soldier's last line of defense. When not in battle,

215-468: A boarding weapon and as a functional fighting dagger. During the days of sail, midshipmen and officers wore dirks; the daggers gradually evolved into ceremonial weapons and badges of office. In the Royal Navy , the naval dirk is still presented to junior officers; the basic design of the weapon has changed little in the last 500 years. The naval dirk (Polish: kordzik , Russian: кортик ) became part of

258-567: A common arm and tool for civilian use by the late medieval period. The earliest known depiction of a cross-hilt dagger is the so-called "Guido relief" inside the Grossmünster of Zürich ( c.  1120 ). A number of depictions of the fully developed cross-hilt dagger are found in the Morgan Bible ( c.  1240 ). Many of these cross-hilt daggers resemble miniature swords, with cross guards and pommels very similar in form to swords of

301-449: A meteorite discovered in the area, deposited by an ancient meteor shower . One of the earliest objects made of smelted iron is a dagger dating to before 2000 BC, found in a context that suggests it was treated as an ornamental object of great value. Found in a Hattic royal tomb dated about 2500 BC, at Alaca Höyük in northern Anatolia, the dagger has a smelted iron blade and a gold handle. The artisans and blacksmiths of Iberia in what

344-541: A pre-Celtic people dominating the lands west of Iberia (most of modern Portugal and Extremadura ) successfully held off the Roman Empire for many years with a variety of innovative tactics and light weapons, including iron-bladed short spears and daggers modeled after Iberian patterns. During the Roman Empire, legionaries were issued a pugio (from the Latin pugnō , or "fight"), a double-edged iron thrusting dagger with

387-551: A ring from the girdle". In the Late Middle Ages, knives with blade designs that emphasized thrusting attacks, such as the stiletto, became increasingly popular, and some thrusting knives commonly referred to as 'daggers' ceased to have a cutting edge. This was a response to the deployment of heavy armor, such as maille and plate armour , where cutting attacks were ineffective and focus was on thrusts with narrow blades to punch through mail or aim at armour plate intersections (or

430-613: A short blade with a sharply tapered point, a central spine or fuller , and usually two cutting edges sharpened the full length of the blade, or nearly so. Most daggers also feature a full crossguard to keep the hand from riding forwards onto the sharpened blade edges. Daggers are primarily weapons, so knife legislation in many places restricts their manufacture, sale, possession, transport, or use. The earliest daggers were made of materials such as flint , ivory or bone in Neolithic times. Copper daggers appeared first in

473-585: A short sword. Dagger A wide variety of thrusting knives have been described as daggers, including knives that feature only a single cutting edge, such as the European rondel dagger or the Afghan pesh-kabz , or, in some instances, no cutting edge at all, such as the stiletto of the Renaissance . However, in the last hundred years or so, in most contexts, a dagger has certain definable characteristics, including

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516-675: A unique niche in Highland culture and history. Many Highland Scots were too cash-poor to buy a sword, following the Disarming Acts enacted to erode Highland martial insurrections but virtually every male carried a dirk—and carried it everywhere! If in Japan the katana was the soul of the Samurai, in Scotland the dirk was the heart of the Highlander. In many warrior cultures oaths were sworn on one's sword. Among

559-445: Is a modern continuation of the 16th-century ballock or rondel dagger . The traditional Scottish dirk is a probable development from the 16th century but like all medieval societies, the Highlander needed a knife for everyday use. The dirk became symbolic of a Highland man’s honour and oaths were sworn on the steel which was believed to be holy. The following highlights the importance of the dirk in Highland culture: The dirk occupies

602-603: Is associated with Scotland in the Early Modern Era , being attested from about 1600. The term was spelled dork or dirk during the 17th century, presumed related to the Danish, Dutch and Swedish dolk , and the German dolch, tolch ; from a West Slavic Tillich . The exact etymology is unclear. The modern spelling dirk is probably due to Samuel Johnson 's 1755 Dictionary . The term is also used for "dagger" generically, especially in

645-423: Is nothing more than a shortened dagger that is compact enough to be worn on the lower leg, usually by means of a sheath clipped or strapped to a boot or other footwear. The dagger is symbolically ambiguous. For some cultures and military organizations the dagger symbolizes courage and daring in combat. However, daggers may be associated with deception or treachery due to the ease of concealment and surprise that

688-485: Is now southern Spain and southwestern France produced various iron daggers and swords of high quality from the 5th to the 3rd century BC, in ornamentation and patterns influenced by Greek, Punic (Carthaginian), and Phoenician culture. The exceptional purity of Iberian iron and the sophisticated method of forging, which included cold hammering, produced double-edged weapons of excellent quality. One can find technologically advanced designs such as folding knives rusted among

731-460: Is used from the 1380s. During this time, the dagger was often employed in the role of a secondary defense weapon in close combat . The knightly dagger evolved into the larger baselard knife in the 14th century. During the 14th century, it became fairly common for knights to fight on foot to strengthen the infantry defensive line. This necessitated more use of daggers. At Agincourt (1415) archers used them to dispatch dismounted knights by thrusting

774-533: The pugio served as a convenient utility knife. The term dagger appears only in the Late Middle Ages , reflecting the fact that while the dagger had been known in antiquity, it had disappeared during the Early Middle Ages, replaced by the hewing knife or seax . The dagger reappeared in the 12th century as the "knightly dagger", or more properly cross-hilt or quillon dagger, and was developed into

817-408: The 1700s. Dirks were originally a single-edged weapon. By 1745, however, the weapon was more commonly had a double-edged blade; this makes the dirk more or less synonymous with the dagger. Dirks were often made from old sword blades. In the nineteenth century dirks started to be made with a curved blade, but returned to a straight blade by the end of the century. Some were long enough to be considered

860-626: The Ancient Greek goddess of witchcraft . The social stigma of the dagger originates in its periodic use in the commission of disreputable and murderous attacks, from the 44 BC assassination of Julius Caesar to the use of the stiletto dagger by the Black Hand of early 20th century America. Consequently, it developed a public association with surprise assaults by criminals and murderers intent on stabbing unsuspecting victims. To this day, criminal codes of many nations and some US states specifically ban

903-648: The British All Arms Commando Course . Daggers are a popular form of what is known as the "art knife", due in part to the symmetry of the blade. One of the knives required of an American Bladesmith Society Mastersmith is the construction of an "art knife" or a "European style" dagger. Ministry of the Navy (Russia) This article presents the heads of the military departments of the Russian Empire . The Russian College of War (or War Collegium )

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946-554: The Gael, however, binding oaths with the force of a geas (involving dire supernatural penalties for breaking such an oath) were sworn on one's dirk. The English, aware of this, used the custom against the Highlanders after Culloden: When Highland dress was prohibited in 1747 those Gael who could not read or sign an oath were required to swear a verbal oath, "in the Irish (Scots Gaelic) tongue and upon

989-572: The Vietnam War, the Gerber Mark II , designed by US Army Captain Bud Holzman and Al Mar, was a popular fighting knife pattern that was privately purchased by many U.S. soldiers and marines who served in that war. Aside from military forces, most daggers are no longer carried openly, but concealed in clothing. One of the more popular forms of the concealable dagger is the boot knife . The boot knife

1032-535: The artifacts of many Second Iberian Iron Age cremation burials or in Roman Empire excavations all around Spain and the Mediterranean. Iberian infantrymen carried several types of iron daggers, most of them based on shortened versions of double-edged swords, but the true Iberian dagger had a triangular-shaped blade. Iberian daggers and swords were later adopted by Hannibal and his Carthaginian armies. The Lusitanii ,

1075-617: The carrying of the dagger as a prohibited weapon. The dagger is in military use as a close combat and ceremonial arm. Many nations use the dagger pattern in the form of the bayonet. Daggers are commonly used as part of the insignias of elite military units or special forces, such as the US Army Special Operations Command, the US Army Special Forces, or the Commando Dagger patch for those who have completed

1118-512: The commandos, who used it primarily for sentry elimination. Some units of the U.S. Marine Corps Raiders in the Pacific were issued a similar fighting dagger, the Marine Raider stiletto , though this modified design proved less than successful when used in the type of knife combat encountered in the Pacific theater due to this version using inferior materials and manufacturing techniques. During

1161-570: The context of prehistoric daggers such as the Oxborough dirk . The Scottish dirk (also "Highland dirk", Scottish Gaelic : biodag ), as a symbolic traditional and ceremonial weapon of the Highland Cathairean (cateran or warrior), is worn by officers, pipers and drummers of Scottish Highland regiments. The development of the Scottish dirk as a weapon is unrelated to that of the naval dirk; it

1204-532: The dagger. These techniques in some respects resemble modern knife fighting , but emphasized thrusting strokes almost exclusively, instead of slashes and cuts. When used offensively, a standard attack frequently employed the reverse or icepick grip , stabbing downward with the blade to increase thrust and penetrative force. This was done primarily because the blade point frequently had to penetrate or push apart an opponent's steel chain mail or plate armor in order to inflict an injury. The disadvantage of employing

1247-437: The early Bronze Age , in the 3rd millennium BC, and copper daggers of Early Minoan III (2400–2000 BC) were recovered at Knossos . In ancient Egypt, daggers were usually made of copper or bronze, while royalty had gold weapons. At least since pre-dynastic Egypt , ( c.  3100 BC ) daggers were adorned as ceremonial objects with golden hilts and later even more ornate and varied construction. One early silver dagger

1290-618: The eye slits of the helmet visor). These late medieval thrusting weapons are sometimes classed by the shape of their hilt as either roundel , bollock or ear daggers. The term dagger is coined in this time, as are the Early Modern German equivalents dolch ( tolch ) and degen ( tegen ). In the German school of fencing , Johannes Liechtenauer ( Ms. 3227a ) and his successors (specifically Andres Lignizer in Cod. 44 A 8 ) taught fighting with

1333-400: The holy iron of their dirks", not to possess any gun, sword, or pistol, or to use tartan: "... and if I do so may I be cursed in my undertakings, family and property, may I be killed in battle as a coward, and lie without burial in a strange land, far from the graves of my forefathers and kindred; may all this come across me if I break my oath." During the period of proscription, only service in

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1376-425: The medieval dagger in this manner was that it could easily be blocked by a variety of techniques, most notably by a block with the weaponless arm while simultaneously attacking with a weapon held in the right hand. Another disadvantage was the reduction in effective blade reach to the opponent when using a reverse grip. As the wearing of armor fell out of favor, dagger fighting techniques began to evolve which emphasized

1419-503: The narrow blades through helmet vents and other apertures. The baselard was considered an intermediate between a short sword and a long dagger, and became popular also as a civilian weapon. Sloane MS . 2593 ( c.  1400 ) records a song satirizing the use of oversized baselard knives as fashion accessories. Weapons of this sort called anelace , somewhere between a large dagger and a short sword, were much in use in 14th century England as civilians' accoutrements , worn "suspended by

1462-457: The only weapon commoners were allowed to carry on their person. In English, the terms poniard and dirk are loaned during the late 16th to early 17th century, the latter in the spelling dork , durk (presumably via Low German, Dutch or Scandinavian dolk, dolch , ultimately from a West Slavic tulich ), the modern spelling dirk dating to 18th-century Scots . Beginning in the 17th century, another form of dagger—the plug bayonet and later

1505-568: The period. Others, however, are not an exact match to known sword designs, having for example pommel caps, large hollow star shaped pommels on so-called "Burgundian Heraldic daggers" or antenna style cross and pommel, reminiscent of Hallstatt era daggers. The cross-hilt type persisted well into the Renaissance The Old French term dague appears to have referred to these weapons in the 13th century, alongside other terms such as poignal and basilard . The Middle English dagger

1548-451: The sabres worn by officers, which were too long and clumsy for trench warfare. They were worn with pride as a sign of having served front line duty. Daggers achieved public notoriety in the 20th century as ornamental uniform regalia during the Fascist dictatorships of Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany. Dress daggers were used by several other countries as well, including Japan, but never to

1591-631: The same extent. As combat equipment they were carried by many infantry and commando forces during the Second World War . British Commando and other elite units were issued an especially slender dagger, the Fairbairn–Sykes fighting knife , developed by William E. Fairbairn and Eric A. Sykes from real-life close-combat experiences gained while serving on the Shanghai Municipal Police Force. The F-S dagger proved very popular with

1634-535: The socket bayonet —was used to convert muskets and other longarms into spears by mounting them on the barrel. They were periodically used for eating; the arm was also used for a variety of other tasks such as mending boots, house repairs and farm jobs. The final function of the dagger was as an obvious and ostentatious means of enhancing a man's personal apparel, conforming to fashion which dictated that all men carried them. WW1 trench warfare caused daggers and fighting knives to come back in play. They also replaced

1677-617: The uniform of naval officers and civilian officials in the Navy Ministry of the Russian Empire , and in the Soviet navy an element of the dress uniform of officers. Later, it became an element of other uniforms as well, e.g. of officers in the Russian and Polish army and air force and of the police forces in some countries. In the United States, the dirk was introduced by Scottish immigrants in

1720-491: The use of the dagger with a conventional or forward grip, while the reverse or icepick grip was retained when attacking an unsuspecting opponent from behind, such as in an assassination. The dagger was very popular as a fencing and personal defense weapon in 17th and 18th century Spain, where it was referred to as the daga or puñal . During the Renaissance Age the dagger was used as part of everyday dress, and daggers were

1763-512: The user could inflict upon an unsuspecting victim. Indeed, many assassinations have been carried out with the use of a dagger, including that of Julius Caesar . A cloak and dagger attack is one in which a deceitful, traitorous, or concealed enemy attacks a person. Some have noted a phallic association between daggers and the succession of royal dynasties in British literature. In European artwork, daggers were sometimes associated with Hecate ,

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1806-533: Was not found in Egypt, making the iron dagger rare, and the context suggests that the iron dagger was valued on a level equal to that of its ceremonial gold counterpart. These facts, and the composition of the dagger had long suggested a meteoritic origin, however, evidence for its meteoritic origin was not entirely conclusive until June 2016 when researchers using x-ray fluorescence spectrometry confirmed similar proportions of metals (Iron, 10% nickel, and 0.6% cobalt) in

1849-555: Was recovered with midrib design. The 1924 opening of the tomb of Tutankhamun revealed two daggers, one with a gold blade, and one of smelted iron. It is held that mummies of the Eleventh Dynasty were buried with bronze sabres; and there is a bronze dagger of Thut-mes III. (Eighteenth Dynasty), c.  B.C. 1600 , and bronze armour, swords and daggers of Mene-ptah II. of the (Nineteenth Dynasty) c.  B.C 1300 . Iron production did not begin until 1200 BC, and iron ore

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