or boung-knife, subs. phr. (old).—1. Considerable uncertainty exists as to the nature or use of this implement: see BUNG = a purse, whence BOUNG KNIFE may therefore have been a knife kept in the purse or girdle, or (see BUNG-NIPPER) it may have been a knife used for cutting purses: see next sense.
1592. GREENE, A Quip for an Upstart Courtier (Harleian Miscellany, V., 407). One of them had on … a skeine like a bruer’s BOUNG-KNIFE.
2. (old).—A cut-purse; a sharper: see BUNG-NIPPER.
