Wordsmith Talk |
About Us | What's New | Search | Site Map | Contact Us | |||
Register Log In Wordsmith.org Forums (Old) Weekly themes. (have been consolidated into a single forum above) Meta-words falchion
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
OP From Plutarch's Life of Aristides (http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_plutarch_aristides.htm):
For taking hold of the spears with their bare hands, they broke many of them, and betook themselves not without effect to the sword; and making use of their falchions and scimitars, and wresting the Lacedaemonians' shields from them, and grappling with them, it was a long time that they made resistance.
The Arms and Armour Glossary of Terms defines it thusly:
Falchion: A short, heavy, broad-bladed sword with a single edge, bearing a similarity to a heavy scimitar.
http://www.chronique.com/Library/Glossaries/glossary-AA/arms_f.htm#falchion
Bingley
Bingley
Dear Bingley: I searched for "falx" and found this in the Smith dictionary:
FALX, dim. FALCULA (a#rph, dre/panon, poet. drepa/nh, drepa/nion), a sickle; a scythe; a pruning-knife, or pruning-hook; a bill; a falchion; a halbert.
As CULTER denoted a knife with one straight edge, "falx" signified any similar instrument, the single edge of which was curved (Dre/panon eu)kampe/j, Hom. Od. xviii.367; curvae falces, Virg. Georg. i.508; curvamine falcis aenae, Ovid, Met. vii.227; adunca falce, xiv.628). By additional epithets the various uses of the falx were indicated, and its corresponding varieties in form and size. Thus the sickle, because it was used by reapers, was called falx messoria; the scythe, which was employed in mowing hay, was called falx foenaria; the pruning-knife and the bill, on account of their use in dressing vines, as well as in hedging and in cutting off the shoots and branches of trees, were distinguished by the appellation of falx putatoria, vinitoria, arboraria, or silvatica (Cato, De Re Rust. 10, 11; Pallad. i.43; Colum. iv.25), or by the diminutive falcula (Colum. xii.18). "
Early English foot soldiers carried a "billhook" which was like a heavy axe with forward curving tip, "J" shaped.
Moderated by Jackie
Link Copied to Clipboard
Forum Statistics Forums16Topics13,913Posts229,599Members9,187 Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
Newest Members Karin, JeffMackwood, artguitar, Jim_W, Rdbuffalo
9,187 Registered Users
Who's Online Now 1 members (wofahulicodoc), 122 guests, and 4 robots. Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Top Posters(30 Days) A C Bowden 19
Top Posters wwh 13,858Faldage 13,803Jackie 11,613wofahulicodoc 10,723tsuwm 10,542LukeJavan8 9,933Buffalo Shrdlu 7,210AnnaStrophic 6,511Wordwind 6,296of troy 5,400
Forum Rules · Mark All Read Contact Us · Forum Help · Wordsmith.org