There are a couple of things that tell us exactly what a pisau raut is, the first is that in Malay languages the purpose to which something is put will often, perhaps usually, give it its name, it can be one thing in the garden, another thing in the house. One thing for one person, a different thing for a different person. Malay, Javanese, Basa Indonesia --- which is a form of Malay --- are to a high degree, situational languages. Thus the idea that a single name is sufficient for any & all objects of a similar form is a pretty silly idea.
Ian is very close to the mark.
Then we have the dictionary meaning of the words:-
pisau = knife
raut in BI means shape or form, and it is a root word, addition of prefixes and suffixes provides other words. When we combine pisau & raut we get pisau raut & that means a knife that is used to give shape to something, it can be a knife used for whittling, a knife used for carving, a knife used for smoothing. It can be a knife used for sharpening pencils.For example, a pensil sharpener is a rautan.
if we wish to understand another society or culture or the things that they produce, the first thing we need to do is learn the language. It helps one hell of a lot.
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