A Butcher Knife is a utillitarian Kitchen Knife. It is used primarily for the butchering and/or dressing of animals. During the late 1700's to mid 1840's, the Butcher Knife was a key tool for mountain men. Simple, useful and cheap to produce, they were used for everything from skinning beaver and cutting food to fighting Native Americans. During this time,       I. Wilson, of Sheffield, England was a major exporter of this type of knife to the Americas. In the 1830's an American company named J. Russell became the major producer of inexpensive, high-quality cutlery. The Butcher Knife soon became a name in every household.

Even today, the Butcher Knife is used throughout the world in the meat processing trade. The French Chef’s Knife is a derivation of the Butcher Knife, and is used as a general Utility Knife. Other similar meat-cutting knives include the Carving Knife, which is designed for slicing thin cuts of meat with a scalloped or “granton” blade to improve separation of sliced cuts of meat, and the Cleaver, which is similar to the Butcher Knife, but has a lighter, thinner blade for precision cutting.