Never has one piece of weaponry evoked so many different spellings - some variations are Skene du, Skein dubh, skean dhu, sgian dubh and Skhian dubh. Phonetically it is pronounced "scheeeian doo" and everyone has a favourite spelling. The most commonly used, however, is Sgian Dubh.

The dirk was usually worn with the scabbard affixed to the belt just to the right of the Sporran. The Scots took on and beat the mightiest army in Europe in the early 1300s. Using the dirk and claymore, they continued to fight for 400 years with devastating effect.