кортик

Attested early 18th century in correspondence regarding Russia's purchase of weapons from Western Europe. The etymology is uncertain; there are several hypotheses.

• Borrowed from Dutch korte sabel (“short saber”) + -ик (-ik, diminutive suffix).
• From the obsolete term ко́рда (kórda, “short sword”) +‎ -ик (-ik), from Old East Slavic кордъ (kordŭ), ultimately from Middle Persian; Vasmer considered this unlikely due to the change from д to т; but compare Polish kordzik and Polish kord (“cutlass”).
• Per Vasmer and Trubachyov, a partial calque of Italian cortello, a dialectal form of coltello (“knife”), with the Italian diminutive suffix -ello mapping to -ик (-ik).

• IPA^(key): [ˈkortʲɪk]

ко́ртик • (kórtik) m inan (genitive ко́ртика, nominative plural ко́ртики, genitive plural ко́ртиков)

1. (nautical) dirk

• Šanskij, N. M. (2004) “кортик”, in Školʹnyj etimologičeskij slovarʹ russkovo jazyka [School Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language] (in Russian), Moscow: Drofa
• Vasmer, Max (1964–1973) “кортик”, in Oleg Trubachyov, transl., Этимологический словарь русского языка [Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language] (in Russian), Moscow: Progress