sword

• swerd, sweard, swoord, swoorde, sworde (all obsolete)

From Middle English sword, swerd, from Old English sweord (“sword”), from Proto-West Germanic *swerd (“sword”), from Proto-Germanic *swerdą (“sword”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂w- (“sharp”).

• (General American, Scotland) IPA^(key): [sɔɹd]

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): [sɔːd]
• (Standard Southern British, General Australian, MLE) IPA^(key): [soːd]
• (Ireland) IPA^(key): [soːɹd]
• (Indic)
  • (traditional) IPA^(key): /so(r)ɖ/
  • (spelling pronunciation) IPA^(key): /swɔ(r)ɖ/
    • (non-rhotic) Homophone: sod
• (rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /so(ː)ɹd/
• (non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /soəd/
• (obsolete, African-American Vernacular) IPA^(key): /swɔːrd/ = sward
• Homophones: soared, (non-rhotic, horse–hoarse merger) sawed
• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)d
• (Early Modern)
  • IPA^(key): /s(w)ɔːrd/, /s(w)uːrd/, /swɔrd/ (from Old English sword, ancestral to most modern pronunciations)^[1]
  • IPA^(key): /swʊrd/ (from Old English swurd)^[2]
  • IPA^(key): /swɛrd/, /swɛːrd/ (from Old English swe(o)rd, corresponding to the spelling swerd, sweard)^[3]

sword (plural swords)

2. (countable) A long bladed weapon with a grip and typically a pommel and crossguard (together forming a hilt), which is designed to cut, stab, slash and/or hack.

   He took out his sword and stabbed the man in the stomach.

   • c. 1515–1516, John Skelton, Againſt venemous tongues enpoyſoned with ſclaunder and falſe detractions &c., published 1568:

     Malicious tunges, though they have no bones,
     Are ſharper then ſwordes, ſturdier then ſtones.

   • c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii], line 59:

     Unsheathe your sword and dub him presently.

   • 1786, Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, page 49:

     Some swords were also made solely to thrust, and some only to cut; others were equally adapted for both.

3. A suit in certain playing card decks, particularly those used in Spain and Italy, or those used for divination.
   1. A card of this suit.
4. (weaving) One of the end bars by which the lay of a hand loom is suspended.
5. (figurative) Violence; military might.

• (weaponry): bayonet, claymore, cutlass, dagger, epee, épée, falchion, foil, katana, knife, machete, rapier, sabre, saber, scimitar, vorpal, yataghan, yatagan

• → Japanese: ソード (sōdo)
• → Māori: hoari

sword (third-person singular simple present swords, present participle swording, simple past and past participle sworded)

1. (uncommon) To stab or cut with a sword

• words

• swerd, sweord, sord, sworde, zuord

From Old English sword, a Mercian form of sweord (which some forms are directly from), from Proto-West Germanic *swerd, from Proto-Germanic *swerdą.

• (from OE sword) IPA^(key): /swɔrd/, /swoːrd/
• (from OE swe(o)rd) IPA^(key): /swɛrd/, /swɛːrd/, /sweːrd/
• (from OE swurd) IPA^(key): /s(w)urd/

sword (plural swordes or (early) sweorden)

1. sword, sabre
   • c. 1395, John Wycliffe, John Purvey [et al.], transl., Bible (Wycliffite Bible (later version), MS Lich 10.)‎^[4], published c. 1410, Matheu 10:34, folio 4, verso, column 2; republished as Wycliffe's translation of the New Testament, Lichfield: Bill Endres, 2010:

     Nile ȝe deme þat I cam to ſende pees in to erþe / I cam not to ſende pees .· but swerd

     Don't feel that I came to bring peace to the Earth. I didn't come to bring peace, but a sword.

2. (figuratively) Military might or power.

• English: sword (obsolete swerd, sweard)
• Scots: swuird, swurd, swerd

• “sword, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 16 March 2018.

• IPA^(key): /sword/, [sworˠd]

sword n (nominative plural sword) (Mercian)

1. alternative form of sweord