bodekin

Middle English bodekin appeared in the 13th century meaning a small dagger or pointed weapon. Its origin is obscure—possibly from Old Irish or Welsh bod, "point" or "tip," or from a Celtic diminutive. By the 14th century, the word was shifting. A bodkin could be a dagger, a stiletto, a large blunt needle for drawing tape or cord through fabric, or a pointed instrument for piercing holes in cloth.

Shakespeare used it in Hamlet (c. 1600): "When he himself might his quietus make / With a bare bodkin." Hamlet is asking why anyone would endure suffering when a simple pointed instrument could end it all. In Shakespeare's time, bodkin still carried the dagger sense. Modern readers sometimes misunderstand the line, imagining Hamlet threatening self-harm with a knitting needle.

By the 18th century, the weapon sense had faded. A bodkin was now a blunt, thick needle with a large eye, used for threading ribbon, elastic, or cord through fabric casings. It was a sewing tool—harmless, domestic, feminine in association. The same word that once named a killing instrument now named a tool for decorative needlework.

The word also developed an unrelated meaning: sitting "bodkin" meant being squeezed between two other people in a tight space, as when three passengers shared a seat designed for two. This sense appeared in the 18th century and persists in British English. A dagger, a needle, a hairpin, and a way of sitting: bodkin accumulated meanings the way a drawer accumulates tools.