Definition
In law, cutlery is a generic term encompassing a broad range of cutting instruments, including knives for table, pocket, and other purposes, as well as razors, scissors, shears, and analogous edged tools. The term carries particular significance in customs and tariff law, where its scope determines the classification and dutiable rate of imported goods. Courts and tariff authorities have recognized that the category is not limited to common household or dining implements but extends to industrial and agricultural cutting tools, including sheep shears.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Sharp cutting utensils; eating or serving utensils such as knives, forks, and spoons; or the business of a cutler.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The business of a cutler; edged or cutting instruments collectively.
The gap between common and legal meaning is meaningful in one direction: ordinary modern usage has narrowed toward flatware and dining utensils, while the legal definition — particularly as applied in tariff and customs contexts — remains expansive, covering shears, razors, scissors, and other edged instruments well beyond the dinner table. A researcher applying the contemporary everyday sense of "cutlery" to a historical tariff dispute would almost certainly undercount the category's scope.
Why It Matters in Research
Cutlery appears in Law Mind sources primarily as a customs classification term, not as a term of criminal law or general commercial law. Researchers encountering it in historical tariff disputes, particularly those arising under nineteenth-century tariff schedules, should be alert to several points.
First, classification disputes under acts such as the Tariff Act of March 3, 1883 turned on whether a given imported article fell within the cutlery schedule. Courts did not treat the name of the article as dispositive; function and use — especially for articles that were new to trade or served as substitutes for previously recognized items — were weighed heavily. This functional analysis means that historical decisions about "cutlery" may encompass items a modern reader would not instinctively classify as such.
Second, the inclusion of sheep shears within "cutlery" under the 1883 Act illustrates how broadly tariff authorities construed the term. Researchers working with schedules from other tariff acts should not assume the same breadth applies uniformly; each act's schedule may define or imply different boundaries.
Third, because modern colloquial usage has narrowed "cutlery" toward flatware, researchers using keyword searches in historical sources should consider broader search terms — edged instruments, cutting tools, bladed goods — to avoid missing relevant material classified under adjacent headings.
Historical Dictionary Support
Anderson's Dictionary of Law is the only historical dictionary source available for this entry. Anderson's definition is notably broader than the modern everyday sense of the word: it expressly includes razors, scissors, shears, and various knives, and it ties the term directly to the 1883 Tariff Act schedule. The note that an article's name is not the sole guide to classification — and that use should be considered, particularly for new articles functioning as substitutes — reflects a practical interpretive principle that recurs in customs jurisprudence of the period.
What historical dictionary sources miss: Anderson's entry is brief and tariff-specific. It does not address cutlery in criminal law contexts (where carrying or concealing bladed instruments may be regulated), in product liability, or in trade standards. Researchers working in those areas will find little guidance from historical legal dictionaries and should look to statutory and regulatory sources directly.
Jurisdictional Note
In the United States, "cutlery" as a legal category has been most developed in federal customs and tariff law, where Congress and federal courts defined its scope for duty purposes. State law uses of the term appear most often in weapons and public safety statutes, where definitions vary considerably and may or may not align with the broad tariff-law sense.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Customs and Tariff Classification; Import Duties