the.com/swiss army knife
One tool pretending to be twelve, mostly to justify the price tag.
means A compact folding pocket tool with multiple blades and implements (knife, scissors, screwdriver, etc.) built into one handle, or figuratively, anything/anyone praised for being flexibly multi-purpose.
from Named for Switzerland, where cutler Karl Elsener began making a folding officer's knife in the late 1800s after Swiss soldiers were issued German-made ones — a patriotic sore point. His company (later Victorinox) kept adding tools to the handle, and the red-handled, cross-emblazoned result became so iconic that 'Swiss Army knife' drifted into English as shorthand for anything that does many jobs passably well, tool or person.
- origin
- Designed in 1891 for Swiss soldiers' rifles
- real name
- Officially called the Offiziersmesser, not Swiss Army Knife
- corkscrew logic
- Added in 1896 because officers demanded wine access
- irony
- Most used blade is the scissors, not the knife