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A knife with a hingedblade or blades that, for safety when not in use, can be folded into a slot in the handle.
1859, Journal of the British Archaeological Association:
...there is yet ampleevidence of the existence of clasp-knives ages before the production of the Canterbury Tales. Among Etruscanantiquities in the Bronze Room of the British Museum are several clasp-knives, some of them with bone, others with bronzehafts, their blades being of iron — a metal employed for cutting implements by the Tyrrhenian tribes, at a far remote era. A scalprum or penknife has been found in Rome, the blade shutting into a bone haft, which is carved to represent the upper half of a human body; and clasp-knives, with iconic handles of the Roman era, have been discovered both in France and this country.
“Well, this knife is called a clasp-knife, because it shuts and opens, as you see, and it has three blades — a big one for cuttin’ up your victuals with, as you see me doin’; and two little ones for parin’ your nails and pickin’ your teeth, an’ mendin’ pens an’ pencils — though of course you don’t know what that means.”
1945, Tom Ronan, Strangers on the Ophir, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 110:
Blake picked his teeth reflectively with the point of a clasp knife.
