Other Definitions
sword (dict)
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SwordA sword (from Old English sweord; akin to Old High German swerd lit. "wounding tool", from the PIE *sver- "to wound, to hurt") is a long edged bladed weapon, consisting in its most fundamental design of a blade and a handle. The blade, normally made of metal and often ground to at least one sharp edge, usually has a pointed tip for thrusting. The handle, called the hilt, can comprise many materials, but most commonly wood covered by leather, fish-skin or metal wiring. The basic intent and physics of swordsmanship remain fairly constant, but the methods of using those physics vary widely from culture to culture. Most of the variations result from the differences in blade designs around the world. The names given to many swords in mythology, literature, and history reflect the high prestige of the weapon (see list of swords). History Humans have manufactured and used bladed weapons from the Bronze Age onwards. The sword developed from the dagger when the construction of longer blades became possible, probably in the early 2nd millennium BC. The hilt at first simply allowed a firm grip, and prevented the hand from slipping into the blade when executing a stab. Iron swords became increasingly common from the late 2nd millennium BC. Iron, stronger and less dense than bronze, has the added advantage of mass-production due to the wider availability of the raw material. The Hittites, the Mycenean Greeks, and the early Celts figured among the early users of iron swords. Eventually smiths learned that by adding an amount of carbon (added during smelting in the form of charcoal) in the iron, they could produce an improved alloy (now known as steel). Several different methods of swordmaking existed in ancient times, including most famously pattern welding. Over time different methods developed all over the world. In Pre-Columbian South America and Mesoamerica several cultures made use of sword-like weapons without developing metallurgy; for example swords -- known as "maquahuilt" -- with obsidian "teeth" mounted along the "edges" of a wooden "blade". During the 17th and 18th centuries, a smallsword became an essential fashion accessory in European countries, and most wealthy men carried one. As the wearing of swords fell out of fashion, canes took their place in a gentleman's wardrobe. Some examples of canes -- those known as swordsticks -- incorporate a concealed blade. The French martial art "la canne" developed to fight with canes and swordsticks and has now evolved into a sport. The sword always served more as a weapon of self-defence than for use on the battlefield, and the military importance of swords steadily decreased during the Middle Ages. Even as a personal sidearm, the sword began to lose its pre-eminance in the late 18th century, paralleling the development of reliable handguns. Swords continued in use, although increasingly limited to military officers and ceremonial uniforms, although most armies retained heavy cavalry until well after World War I. For example, the British Army formally adopted a completely new design of cavalry sword in 1908, almost the last change in British Army weapons before the outbreak of the war. The last units of British heavy cavalry switched to using armoured vehicles as late as 1938. Cavalry charges still occurred as late as World War II during which Japanese and Pacific Islanders also occasionally used swords, but by then an enemy armed with machine guns, barbed wire and armoured vehicles would usually completely outmatch swordsmen. Types of swords See also list of swords. Swords can fall into categories of varying scope. The main distinguishing characteristics include blade shape (cross-section, tapering and length), shape and and size of hilt and pommel, age and place of origin. - The 3rd millennium Sumerian bronze "sickle-sword", together with the bronze dagger ranks as a proto-sword.
- Bronze Age swords with typical leaf-shaped blades first appear in the 2nd millennium BC around the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, and in Mesopotamia.
- European swords
- Xiphos - the "sword" of Ancient Greece. The weapons resembled other mid- first millennium BC iron swords (e.g. of the Persian Empire).
- Gladius - the sword of the earlier Roman army, measuring about 60cm
- Spatha the sword of the late Roman Empire, longer than the gladius. The shape of the spatha continued in use during the early Middle Ages.
- Great sword - a broad term generally referring to the knightly sword of the high Middle Ages.
- Long-sword - a broad and somewhat ahistorical term, usually including the bastard-sword. Broadsword is a similarly ill-defined term.
- Bastard-sword or "hand and a half sword" - the traditional European, two-edged, straight sword for use with either one or two hands (see also Spadone).
- Spadroon - a light sword used both to cut and to thrust
- Zweihnder - the large and heavy, two-handed German sword of the 16th century.
- Estoc - 16th Century armor- and chainmail-piercing sword.
- Schiavona - an Italian Renaissance broad sword.
- Rapier - a longer European dueling sword, optimized more for thrusting than for a slashing action.
- Small-sword - a very short and light descendant of the rapier, mostly for court use during the 18th and 19th centuries
- Claymore (Gaelic Claidheamh Mr, meaning "great sword") - either of two types of Scottish sword; an older two-handed design used as an anti-cavalry weapon, and a more modern blade, famous as the "basket-hilted" claymore.
- Epee, French for "sword", in English refers to the modern equivalent of the duelling sword.
Single edged weapons One strict definition of a sword restricts it to a double-edged weapon used for both slashing and stabbing. However, the term is not used consistently, and it has important cultural overtones, so that the single-edged Asian weapons listed above are almost universally recognized as "swords", simply because they have very similar prestige to the prestige attached to the European sword. Europeans also frequently refer to single-edged weapons as swords -- generically backswords. Other terms include scramasax, falchion, scimitar, dussack, Grosses Messer, cutlass, sabre, szabla, and mortuary sword. Many of these are essentially identical weapons, and the different names may refer to their use in different countries at different times. A machete (or, in Southern Africa, a panga) as a tool resembles such a single-edged sword and serves to cut through thick vegetation, and indeed many of the terms listed above describe weapons that originated as farmers' tools used on the battlefield. The scramasax, for example, usually lacks a cross-piece or any kind of guard, and is more properly considered a war knife. Such weapons lacked much of the prestige and mystique associated with a 'proper' sword (usually reserved to the nobility, and designed exclusively as a weapon). This lack of prestige may have kept these weapons from use even in contexts where they would be advantageous. Already Xenophon recommended using the curved makhaira for cavalry (On Horsemanship 12:11), because of the nature of mounted combat. The Crusaders confronted the Islamic scimitar, but largely failed to adopt the weapon, also because of the symbolism contrasting the cruciform Christian sword with the "crooked" "heathen" weapon. Morphology of the Western sword The blade functions as the cutting part of a sword. Single-edged swords have a non-cutting edge of the blade -- known as the back. The blade may also have grooves or fullers with the purpose of lightening the blade while allowing it to retain its strength, in the same manner as an "I" beam in construction. The hilt is the handle of a sword, and consists of the guard, the grip, and the pommel. It may also have a tassel or sword knot. The scabbard is the case that the sword is kept in when not in use. The ricasso or shoulder is a short section of blade immediately forward of the guard. Most swords have no ricasso. The ricasso is not sharpened, which sometimes allows a finger to be wrapped around the blade for better control. On some large weapons, such as the German longsword, the ricasso was covered with leather and might be gripped in one hand to make the weapon more easily wielded in close-quarters combat. The maker's mark is normally to be found on the ricasso. On Japanese blades it is found on the tang under the handle. The tang is the part of the blade extending from the top of the blade through the hilt and the grip. In a rat-tail tang the sword is held together by a nut screwed onto the tang above the pommel (in 20th-century and later construction), or the tang is peened over a nut on the end of the pommel (in traditional construction). It is one of the weakest types of tang. A "full" tang is the strongest type. In a full-tang sword, the tang is the same width as the sword blade. As the blade doesn't narrow where it joins the handle, it maintains all its strength. The CoP (Center of Percussion), also known as the Sweet spot, is the part of the blade that can deliver the strongest blow with the least vibration. Most swords will have two of these points along the blade. The secondary one nearest to the hilt is a particularly poor point to have struck by another sword, if the user should make the mistake of believing popular mythology and using a sword edge to parry. Being struck at this point will allow the maximum force to be transmitted and may cause a sword to suffer catastrophic failure. From the 18th Century onwards swords which were intended to be used for cutting, i.e. with an edge, have been curved with the radius of curvature equal to the distance from the swordman's body at which it was to be used. This allowed the blade to have a sawing effect rather than simply delivering a heavy blow. European swords had a radius of curvature of around a metre as they were intended to be used at arm's length. Middle Eastern swords had a smaller radius as they were intended to be used with the arm bent. A significant defect that many European swords in the 19th Century had was the use of metal scabbards which tended to make them blunt, and consequently gave Eastern swords a fearsome reputation amongst European troops. Swords intended for stabbing were normally straight, as it made accurate handling easier. European light cavalry (and infantry officers, who usually fought on horseback) invariably had curved swords for slashing rather than straight ones for stabbing, because if a thrust from a moving horse missed then it was hard to make a horse go backwards to repeat the thrust. This was particularly important during skirmishes, which was the normal form that their fighting took. Heavy cavalry, which tended to charge en masse and not skirmish, usually had straight swords for thrusting. Classification Jan Petersen in De Norske Vikingsverd (The Norwegian Viking Swords, 1919) introduced the most widely used classification of swords of the Viking Age, discriminating 26 types labelled A – Z. In 1927 R. E. M. Wheeler condensed Petersen's typology into a simplified typology of nine groups, numbered I – IX. Ewart Oakeshott in The Sword in The Age of Chivalry (1964, revised 1981) introduced a system of classification for medieval sword blades into types, numbered X – XXII as a continuation of Wheeler's system. Type X Oakeshott X is the type of sword common in the late Viking age, remaining in use up to the 13th century. These blades are broad and flat, with an average length of some 80 cm and with a fuller, generally very wide and shallow, running the entire length, fading out shortly before the point. The point is typically rounded. The grip is of the same average length as the earlier Viking swords (some 9.5 cm). The tang is usually very flat and broad, tapering sharply towards the pommel. The cross is generally of square section, about 18 to 20 cm long, tapering towards the tips, in some rare cases slightly curved. It is narrower and longer than the typical Viking type, representing a transitional type to the knightly sword of the high Middle Ages. 10th-century Norsemen knew this type and called it gaddjhalt (spike hilt). The pommels are usually of the Brazil-nut form, and sometimes also disk-shaped. http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_spotx.html In 1981, Oakeshott introduced the a subtype Xa, including swords with similar blades but a narrower fuller, originally classified under type XI. Many of the type X blades are inscribed with the ULFBERHT mark. Type XIII This typifies the classical knightly sword that developed during the age of the Crusades. Typically, examples date to the second half of the 13th century. Type XIII swords feature as a defining characteristic a long, wide blade with parallel edges, ending in a rounded or spatulate tip. The blade cross section has the shape of a lens. The grips are longer than in the earlier types, typically some 15 cm, allowing occasional two-handed use. The cross-guards are usually straight, and the pommels Brazil-nut or disk-shaped (Oakeshott pommel types D, E and I). Subtype XIIIa has longer blades and grips. They correspond to the knightly great swords, or Grans espeés d'Allemagne, appearing frequently in 14th century German, but also in Spanish and English art. Early examples of the type appear in the 12th century, and it remained popular until the 15th century. Subtype XIIIb describes smaller single-handed swords of similar shape. Very few exemplars of the parent type XIII exist, while more examples of the subtype XIIIa survive. A depiction of two-handed use appears in the Tenison psalter. Another depiction of the type appears in the Apocalypse of St. John manuscript of ca. 1300. Symbolic meaning The sword can symbolise violence, combat, or military intervention. It is used in this sense in Jesus' statement, "Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword." Another example is the old saying, "The pen is mightier than the sword" -- attributed to Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Swords form a suit in the Tarot deck (replaced by spades in modern cards), and often function as symbols of masculinity and particularly of the phallus. See also External links
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