Definition of "scalping-knife" [scalping-knife]

• A knife used by the Indians of North America for scalping their enemies. It is now usually a common steel butcher's knife, but was formerly a sharp stone. (noun)

The Century Dictionary (Public Domain)

• "As he straightened his coat I saw with alarm that he had a revolver in his arm-pit and a scalping-knife in an embroidered scabbard thrust in his pants waistband."
• "Illinois, and felt his own hair rise as he touched a Cherokee scalping-knife."
• "London which is concerned with the lancet and the scalping-knife, were well aware of this: they were continually writing against each other; continually speaking against each other; but yet they had never hitherto come to that positive personal collision which is held to justify a cut direct."