stiletto

UK/stɪˈlɛtəʊ/US/stɪˈlɛtoʊ/

nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,761 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: stilettos

A stiletto is a slender dagger, or a very thin heel. A stiletto blade, stiletto heels, a pair of stilettos.

The shoe is named after the dagger for the shape, and the heel only became possible when a steel rod could be put inside it. The dagger was made for stabbing through gaps in armour, and the Italian name means a little stylus.

Definitions of stiletto

1nounstilettoA slender dagger, or a very thin heel.B2+
“She couldn't walk on the cobbled street in her stilettos.”

stiletto is a dagger, or a heel.

Where it comes from

Italian stiletto is a diminutive of stilo, a dagger, from Latin stilus, a pointed writing tool.

Italian
stiletto
English, today
stiletto

Borrowed from Italian stiletto. by surface analysis, stilus + -etto. a doublet of stylet.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

stiletto in the wild

A stiletto (plural stilettos) is a specialized dagger with a long slender blade and needle-like point, primarily intended as a thrusting and stabbing weapon.
Stiletto
Some consider the stiletto a form of dagger, but most stilettos are specialized thrusting weapons not designed for cutting or slashing, even with edged examples.
Stiletto
A stiletto heel, or just stiletto, is a shoe with a long, thin, high heel.
Stiletto heel
The United States Marine Raider stiletto was a combat knife issued to the Marine Raiders and 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion during World War II.
United States Marine Raider stiletto

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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