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Recent Examples of bodkinThe bodkins were helpful tools that could double as hairpins.—
Doug Ross,
Chicago Tribune,
11 Aug. 2025 Icke also occasionally cues up some Bob Dylan songs, chosen for their on-the-bodkin lyrics.—
Helen Shaw,
Vulture,
30 June 2022 Punishment for cursing or disparaging a clergyman was having a bodkin — a large needle — driven through the tongue.—
Michael E. Ruane,
Washington Post,
27 Oct. 2017
This includes openly carrying the famous Jim Bowie knife, as well as daggers, dirks, throwing knives, stilettos, poniards, swords, machetes and spears.
Damon can be as crisp an orator as any actor now working, but his performance here reminds you why Jason Bourne, moving stealthily through a crowd like a sheathed dagger, remains one of his defining roles.
—
Justin Chang,
New Yorker,
17 July 2026
Weary of seeing people pick their teeth with daggers, Cardinal Richelieu has knives blunted in royal France.
Back then, students halted studies to pick up rifles, muskets, and bayonets.
—
Ira Porter,
Christian Science Monitor,
3 July 2026
The Continental Army went into the battle with a two-to-one advantage in numbers, but when most of the American militia crumbled in the face of a British bayonet charge, Pumphrey's unit was outnumbered, Wise says.
Police allegedly found a pocketknife on him and a gun in the vehicle.
—
Mamie Bah,
CBS News,
30 June 2026
Brown, 34, could face the death penalty in the killing of Zarutska, who was stabbed from behind with a pocketknife while seated and looking at her phone in an unprovoked attack on August 22, 2025.
The workers blamed Landi — who was still in charge — for their troubles, and an image of Landi posing, pirate-style, with a cartoon-villain expression and a cutlass between his teeth became a symbol for Eutelia’s misdeeds.
—
Atossa Araxia Abrahamian Atossa Araxia Abrahamian,
New York Times,
7 Jan. 2025
The ultimate prop was the pirate flag, which could be decorated with a skull and crossbones (as in the classic Jolly Roger design), bleeding hearts, hourglasses, spears, cutlasses and skeletons.
—
Sean Kingsley,
Smithsonian Magazine,
15 May 2024