Bodkins and bodkin - Same word different context?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines (God's, ods) bodkins as 'God's dear body!: an oath' and shows bodikin and bodikie as alternate spellings. The Oxford English Reference, on the other hand, defines a bodkin as 'a blunt thick needle with a large eye used esp. for drawing thick tape, etc. through a hem' and various similar things. I believe that the previous poster's definition of this as 'a dagger (or its blade)' would be reasonable in the poetic context of Hamlet.


The Maven's Word of the Day gives the following:

Odd's bodkins is a mild profane oath, which literally means 'God's dear body!' It's now archaic, but was used as an exclamation like God damn! or a host of others.

The usual form of the second word is bodikin, which is a diminutive of body (the diminutive suffix -kin is found in such other words as lambkin). The expression occurs in Shakespeare (Hamlet: "Odds bodikins, man," with a variant reading from the Quarto of "bodkin").

Then this site tells me that:

What is the "bare bodkin" referenced in "To be, or not to be?"
A dagger (or its blade).


The bodkin, as referenced in Hamlet's soliloquy, is a thin sharp blade, designed to pierce armor, especially chain mail.