stylistic:tone, information:classification
Renaissance and early modern period

The dagger was very popular as a fencing and personal defense weapon in 17th and 18th century Spain, where it was referred to as the daga or puñal. During the Renaissance Age the dagger was used as part of everyday dress, and daggers were the only weapon commoners were allowed to carry on their person. In English, the terms poniard and dirk are loaned during the late 16th to early 17th century, the latter in the spelling dork, durk (presumably via Low German, Dutch or Scandinavian dolk, dolch, ultimately from a West Slavic tulich), the modern spelling dirk dating to 18th-century Scots.

Beginning in the 17th century, another form of dagger—the plug bayonet and later the socket bayonet —was used to convert muskets and other longarms into spears by mounting them on the barrel. They were periodically used for eating; the arm was also used for a variety of other tasks such as mending boots, house repairs and farm jobs. The final function of the dagger was as an obvious and ostentatious means of enhancing a man's personal apparel, conforming to fashion which dictated that all men carried them.