What is "blade"

Blade \Blade\ (bl[=a]d), n. [OE. blade, blad, AS. bl[ae]d leaf; akin to OS., D., Dan., & Sw. blad, Icel. bla[eth], OHG. blat, G. blatt, and perh. to L. folium, Gr. fy`llon. The root is prob. the same as that of AS. bl[=o]wan, E. blow, to blossom. See Blow to blossom, and cf. Foil leaf of metal.]

1. Properly, the leaf, or flat part of the leaf, of any plant, especially of gramineous plants. The term is sometimes applied to the spire of grasses.

   The crimson dulse . . . with its waving blade.
   --Percival.

   First the blade, then ear, after that the full corn in the ear.
   --Mark iv. 28.

2. The cutting part of an instrument; as, the blade of a knife or a sword.

3. The broad part of an oar; also, one of the projecting arms of a screw propeller.

4. The scapula or shoulder blade.

5. pl. (Arch.) The principal rafters of a roof.
   --Weale.

6. pl. (Com.) The four large shell plates on the sides, and the five large ones of the middle, of the carapace of the sea turtle, which yield the best tortoise shell.
   --De Colange.

7. A sharp-witted, dashing, wild, or reckless, fellow; -- a word of somewhat indefinite meaning.

   He saw a turnkey in a trice Fetter a troublesome blade.
   --Coleridge.

8. The flat part of the tongue immediately behind the tip, or point.

   ``Lower blade'' implies, of course, the lower instead of the upper surface of the tongue.
   --H. Sweet.

Blade \Blade\ (bl[=a]d), v. t. To furnish with a blade.

Blade \Blade\, v. i. To put forth or have a blade.

As sweet a plant, as fair a flower, is faded As ever in the Muses' garden bladed.
--P. Fletcher.

Old English blæd "a leaf," but also "a leaf-like part" (of spade, oar, etc.), from Proto-Germanic *bladaz (cognates: Old Frisian bled "leaf," German Blatt, Old Saxon, Danish, Dutch blad, Old Norse blað), from PIE *bhle-to-, suffixed form (past participle) of *bhel- (3) "to thrive, bloom," possibly identical with *bhel- (2) "to blow, swell" (see bole). Extended in Middle English to shoulders (c.1300) and swords (early 14c.). The modern use in reference to grass may be a Middle English revival, by influence of Old French bled "corn, wheat" (11c., perhaps from Germanic). The cognate in German, Blatt, is the general word for "leaf;" Laub is used collectively as "foliage." Old Norse blað was used of herbs and plants, lauf in reference to trees. This might have been the original distinction in Old English, too. Of men from 1590s; in later use often a reference to 18c. gallants, but the original exact sense, and thus signification, is uncertain.

n. (context soccer English) someone connected with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheffield%20United%20Football%20Club, as a fan, player, coach etc.

1. n. especially a leaf of grass or the broad portion of a leaf as distinct from the petiole [syn: leaf blade]

2. a dashing young man; "gay young blades bragged of their amorous adventures"

3. something long and thin resembling a blade of grass; "a blade of lint on his suit"

4. a cutting or thrusting weapon with a long blade [syn: sword, brand, steel]

5. a cut of beef from the shoulder blade

6. a broad flat body part (as of the shoulder or tongue)

7. the part of the skate that slides on the ice

8. flat surface that rotates and pushes against air or water [syn: vane]

9. the flat part of a tool or weapon that (usually) has a cutting edge

A blade is the portion of a tool, weapon, or machine with an edge that is designed to puncture, chop, slice or scrape surfaces or materials. A blade may be made from a flaking stone, such as flint, metal (usually steel), ceramic, or other material. Blades are one of humanity's oldest tools, and continue to be used for combat, food preparation, and other purposes.

A blade is a sharp cutting part, for instance of a weapon or tool.

Blade may also refer to:

Blade is a British rapper. His first single, "Lyrical Maniac (Raw Bass)", was recorded in 1989 and brought Blade to prominence in the then-fledgling British rap scene.

Blade is a video game based on the 1998 film adaptation of the Blade character that starred Wesley Snipes. The game was developed by Hammerhead and published by Activision for the Game Boy Color and PlayStation in 2000. It follows the adventure of Blade with help of his mentor and friend Abraham Whistler, and with old remembered enemies like Dragonetti and Mannheim.

Blade, also referred to as The Blade Nation, was an underground computer artscene group that primarily released ANSI, ASCII, and high resolution artwork from 1994 to 1997, and during a brief time in 1998.

Blade is a long-running consumer magazine about knife collecting. The magazine is based in Iola, Wisconsin.

Blade is the soundtrack to the 1998 film, Blade. It was released on August 25, 1998 through TVT Records and Epic Records and featured a wide range of musical genres including hip hop, techno, electronic and alternative rock. The soundtrack managed to make it to #36 on the Billboard 200 and #28 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and featured one charting single "Wrek Tha Discotek" which peaked at #42 on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart.

The album was certified Gold by the RIAA on May 19, 1999 for sales of over 500,000 copies.

Blade is a 1998 American vampire superhero film starring Wesley Snipes and Stephen Dorff, loosely based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. Snipes plays Blade, a human with vampire traits who protects humans from vampires. The film was directed by Stephen Norrington and written by David S. Goyer.

Released on August 21, 1998, Blade became a commercial success by grossing $70 million at the U.S. box office, and $131.2 million worldwide. Despite mixed reviews from film critics, the film received a positive reception from audiences and has since garnered a cult following. It was followed by two sequels, Blade II and Blade: Trinity, both written by Goyer who also directed the latter.

Blade is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Marv Wolfman and penciller Gene Colan, his first appearance was in the comic book The Tomb of Dracula #10 (July 1973) as a supporting character.

The character went on to star and co-star in several comic book series as well as a Blade film series and television series. Actor Wesley Snipes portrayed the vampire hunter in the Blade film series while Kirk "Sticky Fingaz" Jones took on the role for the television series.

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Flint blade from Lithic reduction - Upper Paleolithic - Brassempouy, France - Muséum of Toulouse

]] In archaeology a blade is a type of stone tool created by striking a long narrow flake from a stone core. This process of reducing the stone and producing the blades is called lithic reduction. Archaeologists use this process of flintknapping to analyze blades and observe their technological uses for historical peoples.

Blades are defined as being flakes that are at least twice as long as they are wide and that have parallel or subparallel sides and at least two ridges on the dorsal (outer) side. It is important to note that blade cores appear and are different from regular flaking cores, as each core's conchoidal nature is suited for different types of flaking. Blades are created using stones that have a cryptocrystalline structure and easily be fractured into a smooth piece without fracturing. Blades became the favored technology of the Upper Palaeolithic era, although they are occasionally found in earlier periods. Different techniques are also required for blade creation; a soft punch or hammerstone is necessary for creating a blade.

The long sharp edges of blades made them useful for a variety of purposes. After blades are flaked, they are often incorporated as parts of larger tools, such as spears. Other times, the simple shape and sharpness serves the designed role. Blades were often employed in the impression process of material culture, assisting ancient humans in imprinting ornate designs into other parts of their material culture. Scrapers, used for hide working or woodworking, or burins, used for engraving, are two common such examples.

Cores from which blades have been struck are called blade cores and the tools created from single blades are called blade tools. Small examples (under 12 mm) are called microblades and were used in the Mesolithic as elements of composite tools. Blades with one edge blunted by removal of tiny flakes are called backed blade. A blade core becomes an exhausted core when there are no more useful angles to knock off blades.

Blades can be classified into many different types depending on their shape and size. Archaeologists have also been known to use the microscopic striations created from the lithic reduction process to classify the blades into specific types. Once classified archaeologists can use this information to see how the blade was produced, who produced it, and how it was used.

BLADE (Block All Drive-by Download Exploits) is a computer program that was developed by Phillip Porras and Vinod Yegneswaran at SRI International; and Long Lu and Wenke Lee at the Georgia Institute of Technology. BLADE is funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, the United States Army Research Laboratory, and the Office of Naval Research. The program is designed to prevent drive-by download malware attacks.

Blade is a crowdsourced, short-distance aviation company based in New York City. Blade allows users to plan their own crowdsourced flights or purchase a seat on pre-existing flights between Manhattan, the Hamptons, Nantucket, Mohegan Sun Casino, and major surrounding airports. All Blade flights are operated by FAA-certified and DOT-licensed air carriers.

The Blade films are based on the fictional Marvel Comics character of the same name, portrayed by Wesley Snipes. They were written by David S. Goyer, based on the comics by Marv Wolfman, and Gene Colan. The three films were directed by Stephen Norrington, Guillermo del Toro and Goyer respectively, and distributed by New Line Cinema.

The character was created in 1973 for Marvel Comics by writer Marv Wolfman and artist Gene Colan and was a supporting character in the 1970s comic Tomb of Dracula. In the comic, Blade's mother was bitten by a vampire while she was in labor with Blade. Thus, it can be inferred, Blade was born as a dhampir, a human with vampire genes.

In the study of geometric algebras, a blade is a generalization of the concept of scalars and vectors to include simple bivectors, trivectors, etc. Specifically, a -blade is any object that can be expressed as the exterior product (informally wedge product) of vectors, and is of grade .

In detail:

• A 0-blade is a scalar.
• A 1-blade is a vector. Every vector is simple.
• A 2-blade is a simple bivector. Linear combinations of 2-blades also are bivectors, but need not be simple, and are hence not necessarily 2-blades. A 2-blade may be expressed as the wedge product of two vectors and :

  
  a ∧ b.
  

• A 3-blade is a simple trivector, that is, it may be expressed as the wedge product of three vectors , , and :

  
  a ∧ b ∧ c.
  

• In a space of dimension , a blade of grade is called a pseudovector.
• The highest grade element in a space is called a pseudoscalar, and in a space of dimension is an -blade.
• In a space of dimension , there are dimensions of freedom in choosing a -blade, of which one dimension is an overall scaling multiplier.

For an -dimensional space, there are blades of all grades from 0 to inclusive. A vector subspace of finite dimension may be represented by the -blade formed as a wedge product of all the elements of a basis for that subspace.