How to spell knife

hear itknife/naɪf/nounLong vowels

What it means: A tool with a sharp blade for cutting.

In a sentence: The chef used a knife to chop the carrots.

The part people get wrong

Watch for a silent k. Often misspelled as nife or knive.

Same family: knives, pocketknife, penknife, knife-like, blade. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: Knife comes from Old Norse *knífr*, meaning a blade or dagger, brought into English by Viking influence. The silent ‘k’ at the beginning is a leftover from older pronunciation, when the /k/ sound was actually spoken.

Patterns it uses: Silent letters

Try spelling it

You will hear the word and a sentence. Type it and press Enter. Then four more words from the same level, so you know where you stand.

Words like this

knowledge · exercise · boxes · knives · lives · box · eve · spoon

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