a. Having two edges; esp. of a sword, ax, etc., having two cutting edges, one on each side of the blade.
In quot. 1712–4 applied humorously to a pair of scissors.
1526. Tindale, Heb. iv. 12. The worde off god is … sharper then eny two edged swearde.
1546. Lanc. Wills (Chetham Soc.), II. 27. My greit twoo edged sword and my lesse tow edged sword.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, IV. xxxi. 489. Turner calleth it … Axeworte, bycause Dioscorides saith the seede is lyke a two edged Axe.
1648. Hexham, II. Een twee-snijdigh swaert, a two-edged sword.
1712–4. Pope, Rape Lock, III. 128. Clarissa drew … A two-edg’d weapon from her shining case.
1776. J. Lee, Introd. Bot., Explan. Terms, Anceps, two-edged, flattened with two opposite sides sharp.
1850. W. Irving, Mahomet, etc., xxxviii. II. 344. Alashtar … wielded a two-edged sword.
1875. Bennett & Dyer, trans. Sachs’ Bot., 410. The … apical cell … of Isoëtes lacustris is, according to Hofmeister, two-edged when the stem has two furrows.
b. fig. or in figurative allusion.
a. 1625. Fletcher, Hum. Lieutenant, III. iv. She has two-edged eyes; they kill o’ both sides.
1661. Boyle, Style of Script. (1675), 126. I find all these Topicks … such two-edg’d Weapons, that they are as well applicable to the service of Falshood, as of Truth.
1878. Bosw. Smith, Carthage, 82. Elephants were found to be a two-edged weapon which might be fatal to the hand which wielded it.
