the.com/shank
A makeshift blade, often made in prison, where violence is a serious and ongoing danger.
means The lower leg between knee and ankle, a cut of meat from that same part of an animal's leg, or the narrow stem connecting the head of a tool (or a knife blade) to its handle.
from From Old English 'sceanca,' meaning leg bone or shin, related to Germanic words for a crooked or bent piece — think of the shin's slight bow. The prison-knife sense is much newer, likely because the makeshift blade's long, narrow handle-to-point shape resembled a shinbone, or simply because it was jammed into the body near that area.
- origin
- from shank, meaning the leg or shaft
- materials
- toothbrushes, spoons, and sheer resentment
- verb use
- also means to stab someone
- golf term
- a badly mishit shot, oddly violent too