A skeleton knife refers to two different types of knives, a kitchen knife and an unadorned penknife.

Cheese knife

The first type of skeleton knife is a small

kitchen knife A kitchen knife is any knife that is intended to be used in food preparation. While much of this work can be accomplished with a few general-purpose knives – notably a large chef's knife, a tough cleaver, a small paring knife and some sort of ...

that typically has three large holes on its blade used for cutting fruit or cheese. The purpose of these holes is to reduce the

surface area The surface area of a solid object is a measure of the total area that the surface of the object occupies. The mathematical definition of surface area in the presence of curved surfaces is considerably more involved than the definition of arc ...

of the blade so that sticky foods do not cling to it. Most skeleton knives are used for cutting very soft foods. The knife was created by a

Swiss Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina *Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses *Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss Internation ...

restaurant and after its creation and advertisement it was stolen by many

cutlery Cutlery (also referred to as silverware, flatware, or tableware), includes any hand implement used in preparing, serving, and especially eating food in Western culture. A person who makes or sells cutlery is called a cutler. The city of Sheffie ...

companies and private manufacturers, and is now widely manufactured by companies like Victorinox.

Penknife

The less commonly known type of skeleton knife is a penknife that was made without bolsters or handle material and sold to jewelers or other artisans for final finishing. These types of knives were mostly made in the 19th century and as late as 1950. Wostenholm of Sheffield, England made many of these knives as did Imperial Knife Co. in the United States. Jewelers would finish the knives' handles in semi precious stones and in some cases gold or other precious metals in their own style.

References

{{reflist Knives