blade

Etymology

From Middle English blade, blad, from Old English blæd (“leaf”), from Proto-West Germanic *blad, from Proto-Germanic *bladą, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰl̥h₃-o-to-m, from *bʰleh₃- (“to thrive, bloom”). See also West Frisian bled, Dutch blad, German Blatt, Danish blad, Irish bláth (“flower”), Welsh blodyn (“flower”), Tocharian A pält, Tocharian B pilta (“leaf”), Albanian fletë (“leaf”). Similar usage in German Sägeblatt (“saw blade”, literally “saw leaf”). Doublet of blat. More at blow.

noun

1. The (typically sharp-edged) part of a knife, sword, razor, or other tool with which it cuts.
   1. (metonymically) A sword or knife.
      Paul: Give the Harkonnen a blade and let him stand forth. Shaddam IV: If Feyd wishes, he can meet you with my blade in his hand. 1984, 2:08:29 from the start, in Dune (Science Fiction), →OCLC
   2. Short for razor blade.
2. The flat functional end or piece of a propeller, oar, hockey stick, chisel, screwdriver, skate, etc.
   Turbines have been around for a long time—windmills and water wheels are early examples. The name comes from the Latin turbo, meaning vortex, and thus the defining property of a turbine is that a fluid or gas turns the blades of a rotor, which is attached to a shaft that can perform useful work. 2013 July-August, Lee S. Langston, “The Adaptable Gas Turbine”, in American Scientist
3. The narrow leaf of a grass or cereal.
4. (botany) The thin, flat part of a plant leaf, attached to a stem (petiole). The lamina.
5. A flat bone, especially the shoulder blade.
6. A cut of beef from near the shoulder blade (part of the chuck).
7. (chiefly phonetics, phonology) The part of the tongue just behind the tip, used to make laminal consonants.
8. (archaeology) A piece of prepared, sharp-edged stone, often flint, at least twice as long as it is wide; a long flake of ground-edge stone or knapped vitreous stone.
9. (ultimate frisbee) A throw characterized by a tight parabolic trajectory due to a steep lateral attitude.
10. (sailing) The rudder, daggerboard, or centerboard of a vessel.
11. A bulldozer or surface-grading machine with mechanically adjustable blade that is nominally perpendicular to the forward motion of the vehicle.
12. (dated) A dashing young man.
    But very often blust'ring blades / Are Jerry Sneaks at home. 1832, The Universal Songster: Or, Museum of Mirth, page 189
    Vice does not thrive here, because the young blades seek it elsewhere. 1948, Jack Lait, Lee Mortimer, New York: Confidential!, Crown, published 1951, page 94
    Young blades were expected to kick over the traces and skirt disaster, before they graduated to matrimonial housekeeping. 2009, Amanda Vickery, Behind Closed Doors, Yale University Press, page 77
13. (slang, chiefly US) A homosexual, usually male.
14. Thin plate, foil.
15. (photography) One of a series of small plates that make up the aperture or the shutter of a camera.
16. (architecture, in the plural) The principal rafters of a roof.
17. (biology) The four large shell plates on the sides, and the five large ones of the middle, of the carapace of the sea turtle, which yield the best tortoise shell.
18. (computing) A blade server.
19. (climbing) Synonym of knifeblade
20. (mathematics) An exterior product of vectors. (The product may have more than two factors. Also, a scalar counts as a 0-blade, a vector as a 1-blade; an exterior product of k vectors may be called a k-blade.)
    Holonym: multivector
21. The part of a key that is inserted into the lock.
    Coordinate term: bow
22. (athletics, disability sports, informal) An artificial foot used by amputee athletes, shaped like an upside-down interrogation mark.

verb

1. (informal) To skate on rollerblades.
   Want to go blading with me later in the park?
2. (transitive) To furnish with a blade.
3. (intransitive, poetic) To put forth or have a blade.
   As sweet a plant, as fair a flower, is faded / As ever in the Muses' garden bladed. 1633, Phineas Fletcher, “Elisa”, in Piscatorie Eclogues and other Poetical Miscellanies
4. (transitive) To stab with a blade
   The gang member got bladed in a fight.
5. (transitive, professional wrestling, slang) To cut (a person) so as to provoke bleeding.