switchblade

noun

1. A folding knife with a blade which opens automatically (under spring pressure) when a button is pressed.

verb

1. (transitive)To attack or cut with a switchblade.

   “I got terrible hangovers from the cheap booze; and, one night, I almost got switchbladed when I put my arm around the wrong "lady of the night.”

   “They are the American dream torn asunder, like clean fresh laundry left drying on the clothesline, switchbladed by bored boys of summer.”

   “Finally there was Jackie, the gold-toothed gang member (as she liked to remind us) who'd switchbladed thirty or forty or fifty people”

2. (intransitive)To spring open or up.

   “Switchblading open their silvery cell phones, they call their mortgage brokers and say “Buy.””

   “Steering and stabilization fins switchblading out, followed by the wings.”

   “I stood there waiting for the three remaining Rottweilers to come barreling toward the fence, fangs switchbladed open.”

   “He ticked off the facts, switchblading out a finger for each one.”

3. (ambitransitive)To (cause to) make a sudden move or transition.

   “He briefly rocked medical school, switchbladed to accounting and finally joked his first radio script in 1938.”

   “The play's principal comic manoeuvre is to have concern switchblading into callousness.”

   “Daniel's smile is fixed, but his eyes are switchblading from side to side, looking at Paula, looking for an exit.”

   “The lantern began swinging to its own rhythm, switchblading light all over the tent.”