How to Use knife-edge in a Sentence
knife-edge
noun-
Or, to put that another way, are Newcastle on a knife-edge?
—George Caulkin, New York Times, 10 Aug. 2025
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It’s made from washable cotton for easy cleaning, and has a crisp knife-edge finish for an even sleeker look.
—Michelle Baricevic, PEOPLE, 9 June 2026
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The writing dances on a knife-edge as religious piety and saintly delusion rub elbows.
—Craig Jenkins, Vulture, 7 Nov. 2025
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Here, the cliffs were covered in vegetation, with knife-edge spurs and basalt towers that soared into the dark clouds above.
—Peter Heller, Condé Nast Traveler, 2 Jan. 2024
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In simple terms though, as long as the Strait of Hormuz stays closed, markets remain on a knife-edge.
—Jim Edwards, Fortune, 11 May 2026
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Several sections require threading knife-edge ridges blasted by high winds.
—Nick Heil, Outside, 15 Jan. 2016
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That knife-edge divide — dry pavement on one side, a downpour on the other — is what made Ford’s footage so startling.
—Hanna Wickes, Miami Herald, 16 Apr. 2026
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The 8 billion-year-old sun will push Earth to a similar, climatic knife-edge.
—Quanta Magazine, 15 Sep. 2025
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The game swung on these knife-edge moments, but the actual performance levels were similar from both teams.
—Mark Carey, New York Times, 25 Apr. 2026
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That scene, where Cain and Derek go conversationally toe-to-toe, is one of the film’s sharpest knife-edge moments.
—Craig McLean, Variety, 4 Dec. 2025
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The movie tries to pick up the threads of previous films, but, in attempting to make Myers more mystical, this film robs him of his knife-edge menace.
—Chris Snellgrove, Entertainment Weekly, 25 Oct. 2025
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Even for athletes who’ve spent a lifetime climbing mountains, traversing sheer cliffs, balancing on knife-edge ridgelines, this fear never disappears.
—Outside Online, 5 Nov. 2025
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His premiership seemingly rests on a knife-edge after a day of intrigue of the kind that British politics seems to have perfected in recent years.
—Katie Foley, CNBC, 12 May 2026
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Even that path, however, requires Bayern to edge past Manchester City in a knife-edge quarter-final.
—Conor O'Neill, New York Times, 10 Mar. 2026
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After a long and gruelling season of almost perpetual tension, another 90 minutes on the knife-edge await.
—Tom Williams, New York Times, 17 May 2026
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The intriguing twist here, of course, is that humanity's existence is briefly on a knife-edge, as Pike makes the biggest decision of his (or, indeed, anyone's) life.
—Richard Edwards, Space.com, 23 July 2026
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Tottenham Hotspur go to Wolverhampton Wanderers this weekend with their season and future on a knife-edge.
—Elias Burke, New York Times, 25 Apr. 2026
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When a boat is balancing on the absolute knife-edge of foiling flight in light air, the priorities change massively, and this is when Fletcher is grateful for the extra help from the booth.
—Andrew Rice, New York Times, 15 Sep. 2026
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Two warriors gleam in the midst of Indian Combat (1868) and continue their brawl to the death, one knife-edge away from mortality.
—Tyehimba Jess, ARTnews.com, 17 Apr. 2026
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Its thin exosphere offers almost no protection from solar radiation, making this twilight boundary a literal knife-edge of danger.
—Kaif Shaikh, Interesting Engineering, 13 Nov. 2025
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But the battle between Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris remains on a knife-edge and the pressure will only increase from here.
—Alex Kalinauckas, New York Times, 21 Aug. 2025
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This is probably mostly right—studios’ appetite for risk keeps shrinking, sequels and reboots are favored over original films, and the days of out-of-control productions dancing on the knife-edge of catastrophe may well be behind us.
—Michael O’Donnell, The Atlantic, 10 Feb. 2026
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Vintage variation shifts my preferences, but the combination of knife-edge acidity, tropical fruit, and herbal complexity makes these worthy additions to the cellar.
—Paul Caputo, Forbes.com, 31 Aug. 2025
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Hansen, the University of Chicago political scientist, said the Republican caucus has held up well over the last year, considering its knife-edge majority.
—Daniel C. Vock, Chicago Tribune, 13 Feb. 2026
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The match-ups between PSG and Bayern and Arsenal and Atletico are so evenly balanced — bringing together teams with similar tactical outlooks — that both will be on a knife-edge throughout.
—Phil Hay, New York Times, 30 Apr. 2026
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Serbia travels to England, sat third in UEFA qualifying Group K, one point behind Albania, and with its qualification chances balanced on a knife-edge.
—Ben Verbrugge, MSNBC Newsweek, 13 Nov. 2025
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'knife-edge.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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