the.com/putty knife
A spreading tool masquerading as a blade, all flat ambition and zero edge.
means A hand tool with a broad, flat, flexible blade used to apply, smooth, or scrape putty, filler, paint, and similar soft materials.
from A straightforward compound of "putty" and "knife." "Putty" comes from French "potée," meaning the contents of a pot (the calcined-metal powder once kept in pots for polishing), tied to "pot"; over time it shifted to the soft, dough-like sealing paste we know now. "Knife" is solidly Germanic, from Old English "cnif," possibly borrowed from Old Norse "knífr." So the name simply marks it as the knife you keep alongside your putty — even though, as the essence notes, it never earned an edge.
- flexible vs stiff
- Bendy ones spread, rigid ones scrape and pry
- name lies
- Mostly used for paint prep, not putty
- blade width
- Sized in inches from one to six
- old trade
- Glaziers used it to bed window glass