d'k tahg or daqtagh

The d'k tahg is the preferred personal knife of the Klingon warrior. It is compact and quite deadly in the hands of the trained Klingon. Over the years several variations of the knife have been seen - smaller primary blade with complex fore guard area and spring operated secondary blades that act as guards, a larger bladed version with simpler fore guard and spring operated secondary blades and a version similar to the second type in all respects except the secondary blades are *fixed* in the open position and do not retract.  The bottom left picture shows the knife fully assembled with the moQ (spherical pommel) and the DuQwI'Hommey (little spikes) installed, along with the symbols of the House of ownership. This knife is 16 inches overall in length with a 9 inch primary blade. The primary blade is 3.25 inches at its widest and the
secondary blades are 3 inches long and 1 inch wide. All blade parts are a quarter inch in thickness and the handle is a polymer material that matches the fore guard in all respects except for it's color. The topmost pictures in this display are from a Holodeck program that was created by Gowron a couple of years ago to help StarFleet Officers understand Klingon Customs Rituals and Weapons .

Reference: Numerous TNG and DS9 Episodes
                        Star Trek: Klingon CDROM

"The daqtagh changes appearance almost as fast as it changes its spelling in the tera'ngan language.  I believe that this is due not only to the fact that each forge on Q'onos has made its own variants of the blade over the centuries but the daqtagh like other weapons has to be custom fitted to the warrior who will wield it.  Another trivia tidbit I remember reading was that due to a mistake in the decode matrix of early Klingon-Federation translators this knife was classified by StarFleet Intelligence for many years as a "Levek".   It wasn't until sometime after 2293 that the error was discovered.  Unfortunately,  a band of Ferengi Traders got their hands on the designs of the daqtagh in 2364, and have produced some..shall we say 'lesser' variants of the blade."