to cause death, etc., is liable to punishment. In Lakshmiammal v Samiappa (AIR 1968 Madras 310), the accused were armed with weapons like knife, hammer, crowbar and spades. It was held that these were undoubtedly deadly weapons. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines the word 'weapon' as 'material thing designed or used or usable as an instrument for inflictingbodily harm, e.g. gun, bomb, rifle, sword, spear, stick hammer, poker, horn, claw'. The word 'deadly', according to this Dictionary, means 'causing fatal injury'. Also, according to this Dictionary, 'knife' means 'blade with sharpened longitudinal edge fixed in handle either rigidly…. or with hinge used as cutting instrument or as weapon'. As per Webster's Third New International Dictionary a 'knife’ is 'a simple instrument used for cutting consisting of a sharp-edged usually steel blade provided with a handle'. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English defines 'knife' as 'a blade fixed in a handle used for cutting as a tool or weapon'. These definitions in various dictionaries can be multiplied. We all understand what a knife means and to categorise it or to fix its size for it to be a deadly weapon may not be appropriate. A knife has also been' described as a pocket knife, pen knife, table knife, kitchen knife, etc. It cannot be denied that a knife can be used as a weapon of offence. It can cut, it can pierce, it can be deadly. To say that a knife to be a deadly weapon should be of a particular size would perhaps be not a correct statement. In the present case, the evidence shows that the injury was caused to Singh Ram witness by a sharp-edged weapon and there is a statement that the accused Salim was carrying a knife and it was with that knife that the injury was caused to the witness. It would not be necessary for the witness to further state as to that was the size of the knife to attract the provisions of Section 397 I.P.C. as was contended by Mrs. Ahlawat. This contention that case under Section 397 I.P.C. is not made out fails.” (emphasis added)
