stiletto

plural stilettos · plural stilettoes · plural stiletti

1. A small, slender knife or dagger-like weapon intended for stabbing.

   There the cause of death was soon ascertained; the victim of this daring outrage had been stabbed to death from ear to ear with a long, sharp instrument, in shape like an antique stiletto, which, I may tell you, was subsequently found under the cushions of the hansom.

   1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Tremarn Case”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC, section 1; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020

2. A rapier.
3. An awl.
4. A woman's shoe with a tall, slender heel (called a stiletto heel).
5. historicalobsoleteA beard trimmed into a pointed form.First known use 16th–17th c.

   The very quaik of faſhions, the very hee that / VVeares a Steletto on his chinne.

   c. 1635–1636 (date written), Iohn Ford [i.e., John Ford], The Fancies, Chast and Noble: […], London: […] E[lizabeth] P[urslowe] for Henry Seile, […], published 1638, →OCLC, Act III, page 32

   Synonyms: bodkin beard, pique-devant

present singular third person stilettos · participle present stilettoing · participle past stilettoed · past stilettoed

1. transitiveTo attack or kill with a stiletto (dagger).

   The recollection of former atrocities by the populace in plundering the city and stilettoing the inhabitants, is sufficiently fresh in the remembrance of the government to serve as an additional stimulus to prevent similar disorders.

   1834, Henry Tudor, Narrative of a Tour in North America