sheath n also shade*, shayt, sheet. Cp OED ~ 1 'case or covering of sword, dagger, knife, etc,' 7 ~ -knife 'dagger-like knife.'
1 An eight-inch (20.3 cm) leather case in which sealer keeps his knife, hung at the side by a leather strap slung crosswise over the shoulder or fastened around the waist (P 245-79).
1905 MURPHY (ed) 18 "The Fisherman's Son": His belt and sheath he has girded on, / And his tow rope slung behind him.
2 Comb sheath knife, shade* ~ , shayt* ~ , shaything ~ , sheet ~ [phonetics unavailable]: stout knife with a broad, thin, curved blade five or six inches (12.7-15.2 cm) in length, used to remove the skin and blubber of seals; SCULPING KNIFE.
1871 Zoologist vi, 2546 A knife called a sheath-knife, and carried in the waist-belt, is generally used for sculping seals. 1905 MURPHY (ed) 13 "Died on the Ice Floe": While the keen, glittering sheath knives soon gave / Them the 'sculp' they required for their 'tows.' 1924 ENGLAND 185 At times. when no killing offered, some of the men would drive a couple of 'sheet knives' a few paces apart in the filthy, splintered deck, and with little circlets of rope would play ring toss. Ibid 233 Our belt, skin boots an' shaythin' knife, / Our piper and our pan. P 130-67 Shadin' knife. Wooden handled knife having a six-inch blade carried to the ice by sealers. This knife was carried in a sheath. Also any knife worn in a sheath. P 148-67 A big shade knife.
