Various Words For Daggers

My previous essay looked primarily at three kinds of two-handed weapons of choice from the Middle Ages: the maul, flail and flamberge. There are at least eight other categories of two-handed weapons, but I will only say something about the claidhmore, before moving to daggers. The claidhmore, known as the claymore in most modern dictionaries, was a very heavy two-edged broadsword of the ancient Scottish Highlanders. The OED tells us it was derived from the Gaelic claidheamh mor or "great sword." Its mission was to slash and crush, and its enormous bulk provided the critical weighting to the weapon to do as much damage as possible. It is commonly, but imprecisely, known as the "basket-hilted broadsword" but this sword is frequently a singled-edged sword.

To the One-Handed Edged Weapons and the Daggers

I choose to focus on this sub-category of one-handed edged weapons because it provides the largest number of words of any type of weapon to describe it. First, let's run down the list of one-handed edged weapons. It includes 14 categories:
(1) backsword; (2) bastard sword; (3) broadsword; (4) dagger; (5) estoc; (6) falchion; (7) handaxe; (8) katar; (9) longsword; (10) main gauche; (11) rapier; (12) scimitar; (13) short sword; and (14) katana. This article tells us that the katana was originally a Japanese sword, without doubt the most common sub-category of these. The article also introduces us to several other terms for Japanese swords, but I can't get into those now. Though the word entered into English in 1613 (as "cattan"), it was defined as follows, as early as the 19th century: "The Japanese sword of ancient days [the tsurugi] was a straight double-edged heavy weapon some three feet long. That of medieval and modern times (the katana) is lighter, shorter, has but a single edge, and is slightly curved towards the point."

Whereas the claymore/claidhmore had a Scottish origin, and the katana a Japanese, the scimitar is defined as a "short, curved, single-edged sword, used especially among Turks and Persians." Cockeram, in 1623, defined a "Semitarie" as a "crooked Sword or Faulchion." Several synonyms are listed for it: cutlass, kilij, palache, sabre, sapara, yataghan, kama. But this article about the scimitar also lists the following swords, which are usually called scimitars:

1. Saif (Arab); 2. Shamshir (Persian); 3. Kilij (Turkish); 4. Talwar (Indian); 5. Nimcha (Moroccan) and 6. Pulwar (Afghan). So many words...so little time. Let's move to the daggers.

Daggers

This web site lists 21 alternate terms to describe daggers: bodkin, butcher knife, cinquedea, dirk, misericord, parazonium, pavade, poignard, pugio, scramasax, sgian achlais, sgian dubh, stiletto, bracelet dagger, crescent dagger, fantail dagger, forked dagger, kidney dagger, tanto, kozuka. Let's just do a little with a few of them. I already have described the interesting word misericord in this essay. The word bodkin, to descrie a short pointed weapon, poniard, stiletto, lancet, is known to all those who love Shakespeare. From Hamlet III.1.76, "When he himself might his/ Quietus make With a bare Bodkin." But already, in the early 17th century, this word was fading out, as can been seen by the way that the KJV (1611) handled Coverdale's 1535 version of I Kings 18:28. Coverdale rendered it "They..provoked themselves with knives & botkens." But the KJV rendered the latter word as "lancets." The poignard in the list above is really the poniard, which I described in my previous essay.

What is a dirk? Well, it, too, like poniard, maul, and flail was first a noun and then a verb in English. It was a "kind of dagger or poniard," or the "dagger of a Highlander," that was first attested in 1602. But the spelling is interesting. "Two Scotch daggers or dorks at their girdles." Dork evolved into durk in the later 17th century, and that word eventually became dirk. An 1822 description has this: "The dirk has a pointed blade, four or five inches long, with a small handle. It is worn within the vest, by which it is completely concealed." By the late 17th century it became a verb, "For a misobliging word She'll durk her neighbour o'er the board."

The parazonium was a small sword or dagger worn on the belt by ancient Greeks and Romans. Martial first speaks of it in the early Roman Empire. It first came into English in the mid-18th century: "That same spear, parazonium, and multicium, the remains of the emblems and drapery with which the figure of Brittania is delineated on our copper-money."

The scramasax found its home among the Franks--it was a large knife used by them in hunting and war. Gregory of Tours, the 6th Cent. historian of the Franks, first used the term scramasaxos, though the derivation of that word is uncertain. Scramasax only came into English in 1862: "One of these weapons was the scramasaxus, or knife-shaped sword of the Anglo-Saxons, with one edge.." If scramasax comes from France, the stiletto has its origin in Italy. It is the diminuntive of the word stilo, which means "dagger." It came into English in 1611: 'They [sc. the Venetian 'Braves'] wander abroad very late in the night...armed with a privy coat of maile,..and a little sharpe dagger called a stiletto."

Conclusion--the Cinquedea

Let's close with reference to this Northern Italian dagger of the Italian Renaissance of the 15th-16th centuries. The name means "five fingers" and it describes the width of the blade at its widest. The weapon varied in length, being anywhere from 10-28" in length.

There is lots more to be said about weapons of all kinds. For example, I was mesmerized by the cruelty and desire to inflict damage on people which characterizes the "brawling weapons." Some of these are: the blackjack, cestus, hook-knife, razorpaw, knuckle-duster (brass knuckles), paingrip and tiger-claw. I think I have had enough entertainment for one day, however.

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