Swiss Army knife
type of pocket knife containing multiple tools
The Swiss Army knife (German: Schweizer Taschenmesser, Sackmesser, Hegel, etc.) is a multi-tooled pocketknife made for the Swiss Army since 1890, with consumer versions made, particularly since 1945. The term "Swiss Army knife" was used by American soldiers after World War II rather than the German word "Offiziersmesser", meaning "Officer's knife". They are commonly made by Victorinox and its subsidiary Wenger.
The Swiss Army knife generally has a drop-point main blade plus screwdriver, bottle opener, can opener and awl, while commercial versions include other blades and tools, such as scissors, corkscrew, saw blade, tweezers and toothpick. The blades and tools are folded into the handle of the knife through a pivot point mechanism. The handle is traditionally a brown cellulose fibre with embossed Swiss cross, with later military issue having plastic handles with the coat of arms of Switzerland and consumer versions mainly having red plastic handles but also made in a variety of colours and materials. Consumer knives can be distinguished by their cross logos; the Victorinox logo has a cross surrounded by a shield while Wenger's has a cross surrounded by a rounded square.
The knives are an icon of Swiss culture and the design and the versatility of the knife have worldwide recognition. Until 2008, Victorinox and Wenger supplied about 50,000 knives to the Swiss military each year and manufactured many more for export, mostly to the United States. Sales declined significantly as a result of competition from other pocket multi-tools and legal restrictions on the carrying of knives, particularly on airlines.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q23719. The Library of Congress control number is sh2018002807. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1890, 1945 and 2008.
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This entry incorporates text from “Swiss Army knife” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.