> as lemmas

1871 L. Stephen Playground of Europe (1894) v. 120 Balancing ourselves on a knife-edge of ice between two crevasses.

1897 Pall Mall Mag. Aug. 524 She had come to the party..on the knife-edge of anticipation and alarm.

1907 Westm. Gaz. 26 Nov. 3/2 The road thereto lies along a ‘knife-edge’.

1925 W. J. Miller Introd. Physical Geol. viii. 252 A knife-edge ridge may also develop where glaciers in two parallel valleys erode and steepen the valley sides until only a very sharp divide separates the valleys.

1925 E. F. Norton in E. F. Norton et al. Fight for Everest: 1924 i. ii. 31 A ridge which begins in a knife-edge of rock worthy of the Chamounix Aiguilles.

1945 S. J. Baker Austral. Lang. iii. 58 Knife edges, as certain razor-back sandhills are known.

1963 Times 24 Jan. 10/3 Mr. John Brass, chairman of the West Midlands Division of the N.C.B., said yesterday that west Midland coal supplies were poised ‘on a knife edge’ at the present.

1964 C. Willock Enormous Zoo v. 74 The immediate foreground beneath the sandstone cliff..was eroded into a series of gullies and knife-edges like row upon row of yellowed shark's teeth.

1969 C. R. Longwell et al. Physical Geol. xii. 266/2 An arête is a jagged, knife-edge ridge created where two groups of cirque glaciers have eaten into the ridge from both sides.

1971 Country Life 25 Feb. 408/3 The ridge goes easily at first on firm snow..and finally ends in a snow knife-edge.

1972 Guardian 18 Feb. 24/5 The Government's knife-edge victory for the European Communities Bill in the Commons last night.

1974 Times 12 Oct. 1/1 A government with a knife-edge majority.

1974 Times 12 Oct. 1/2 Mr Wilson intends to govern on a parliamentary knife-edge for at least two or three years.