No ornament but that one famous gem,
Mountain of Light! bound with a silken thread
Upon his nervous wrist; more used, I ween,
To feel the rough strap of his buckler there."
The Banyan Tree.
See also (1876) Browning, Epilogue to Pacchiarotto, &c.
KOOKRY, s. Hind. kukrī, [which originally means 'a twisted skein of thread,' from kūknā, 'to wind'; and then anything curved]. The peculiar weapon of the Goorkhas, a bill, admirably designed and poised for hewing a branch or a foe. [See engravings in Egerton, Handbook of Indian Arms, pl. ix.]
1793.—"It is in felling small trees or shrubs, and lopping the branches of others for this purpose that the dagger or knife worn by every Nepaulian, and called khookheri, is chiefly employed."—Kirkpatrick's Nepaul, 118.
[c. 1826.—"I hear my friend means to offer me a Cuckery."—Ld. Combermere, in Life, ii. 179.
[1828.—"We have seen some men supplied with Cookeries, and the curved knife of the Ghorka."—Skinner, Excursions, ii. 129.]