Weapons Defined

A Specialized Dictionary

            © 2009 Richard Pallaziol, Weapons of Choice ™- all rights reserved

12 gauge –        One of the barrel sizes for shotguns, but also a modern and incorrect catch-all term for any large shotgun.

22 – Modern nickname for a .22 caliber pistol, usually a very small frame revolver. Also sometimes used to mean a very small rifle.

30-06 –  One variety of rifle cartridge, sometimes also used to describe a rifle (any style) that fires this size cartridge.

30-30 –  Another variety of rifle cartridge, sometimes also used to describe a rifle (any style) which fires this size cartridge. Usually the reference is to a lever-action or bolt-action sporting rifle.

32 – Modern nickname for any .32 caliber pistol, most often a snub-nose revolver.

32/20 –  This was a stubby rifle cartridge that around the turn of the century some people found could fit pretty easily into some .38 caliber revolvers – and the gun wouldn’t even explode when fired. The word went around that you could buy just the one kind of cartridge and it could do double duty. And even though the cartridge was small for a rifle load, it had quite a bit of powder for a revolver, so was something of an accidental “magnum”.
       Colt Firearms Co (and a couple of other manufacturers) tried to capitalize on this, and came out with some revolvers with different looks. They were all based on already popular frame models, but with chambers and barrel specifically bored for the .32/20. The guns look just like the other .38 caliber guns – you’d practically need an engineer’s caliper to measure the chamber and inside of the barrel to make sure which gun you had.
        The idea was a good one. Imagine wanting to have a pick-up truck for work and also a nice sedan for driving around town and a little sports car for tearing up the backroads – but buying only one engine and using it for all three cars. Great idea, right? But it doesn’t work because the car is built around the engine, and the engine is built around the intended use. Same thing with firearms. The 32/20 guns were found either have too much recoil to be easily handled, too prone to damage from internal stress, or too heavy for the amount of power it produced. And at the end of the day, not that many people were interested in having one style of ammunition for both rifle and revolver.
       The novelty wore off after a few decades. The cartridge was too low power to be of much serious use in a rifle, and compared to the .38 too costly to use when simply “plinking” or target shooting.

35 mm revolver – An anti-aircraft gun mounted on warships. 35 mm ammunition is about 1 3/8 inches thick, so those rounds are the size of short fat carrots. The guns can fire aprox. 1,000 rounds per minute, at either a low flying plane or a fast moving ship. The assembled weapon usually stands between eight to fifteen feet high once it is secured onto the deck.
       Obviously, a 35mm revolver is not a handgun. It’s called a revolver because its central operating system revolves, but it is not a pistol because you certainly can’t hold it in one hand. For some reason, some people are starting to use the term “35mm revolver” as though they are describing some sort of pistol. The only “pistols” that can be 35mm are those that fire emergency signal flares, but even those are single shot and not revolvers.
       The key here is that they are saying millimeter (mm) instead of caliber (cal).

357 magnum –   Modern nickname for a .357 caliber pistol, usually a revolver, and especially for the long-barreled version from the 1960’s, the Colt Python. The .357 cartridge was developed in the mid 1930’s, and were used in any .38 caliber handgun, but the first revolvers specifically designed for the cartridge came out in 1955.

38 – Modern nickname for a 38 caliber revolver, usually that with a four inch barrel, but sometimes used for the snub-nose style.

44  –      The most common reference is for the Remington six-shooter cowboy revolver of the late 19th century.

44 magnum –     Modern nickname for a 44 caliber pistol, either semiautomatic or revolver, of the 1960’s.

45 – Modern nickname for a 45 caliber semiautomatic pistol, although it used to be the common nickname for the western cowboy revolver made by Colt.

9 –   Modern nickname for a 9mm semiautomatic pistol.

Action – For firearms, it refers either to how the powder charge is ignited for single shot weapons, or for multi-shot firearms the mechanism by which rounds are brought to the firing position. Some actions include flintlock, wheellock, percussion, lever action, pump action, bolt action, and blow back.

Ahlspiess –        A two-handed thrusting spear used by medieval German armies. This was a foot soldier’s polearm, not to be thrown, with a yard-long steel spike mounted on a wooden shaft of anywhere from four to six feet long. Between the wood and steel was a round hand guard, about 12 inches in diameter. Nothing fancy in its use, it was a down and dirty thrusting/impaling weapon stout enough to pierce armour.

AK-47 –     Automatic-Kalashnikova army firearm, model number 47. Designed in 1944, it has been the standard issue Soviet sub-machine gun since 1951. Subsequently produced by dozens of countries and distributed world wide, it has a well deserved reputation for durability and reliability under battle conditions. The Kalashnikov (designated as AK-74 after many internal improvements) is the most successful automatic firearm ever designed.

Ankus -The single-hand hook used by elephant trainers in India. Also called an elephant hook or bull hook. An ancient tool, the older versions look very scary and are usually included in books describing the weapons of India, although there is no evidence that they were ever used in combat.

AR-15 – The original designation by Armalite Co. for what would be known as the M-16. It is still the name for the civilian version of the weapon.

Arbalest – The medieval continental European term for the crossbow.

Arquebus –  also Harquebus, Hackbutt. The earliest of the handheld firearms, first developed in the mid 15th century and commonly seen in European battlefields by the mid 1500’s. They began as mere short cannons strapped onto a wooden stock, and usually had a metal ring from which the weapon could be hung from a hook to support the weight and diminish the recoil.  In time a tripod was added to allow for maneuverability in the field and the weapon was lightened considerably. Fired just like a cannon, a lit match or fuse was manually applied to a touchhole in order to set off the powder inside the barrel. When a reliable trigger and matchlock was developed by the late 16th century, the term arquebus was dropped and the term musket became common. For some armies, both terms continued to be used simultaneously until the early 1600’s. Firearms with shorter barrels but of larger caliber continued on for some time with the name arquebus, and musket became the name for the longer barreled weapons of slightly smaller caliber.

Arrow –              The pointed shaft fired from a bow, but not from a crossbow. Arrows must flex during their flight.

Artillery –           Originally meant all and any weapons and ammunition of war, then anything fired (arrows, bullets, shot) from a weapon, but for the last 200 years refers only to the larger firing weapons (guns which must be mounted from a fixed or heavy platform) and its ammunition.

Assault –           A very recent term to describe pistols or rifles that fire in fully automatic mode, can be easily carried and operated by one person, and have a clip capacity of at least 20 rounds. Assault weapons have only one purpose – to kill as many humans as possible as quickly as possible.

Automatic –       A gun that can fire continuously so long as the trigger is held. (As opposed to semi-automatic, in which the trigger must be pulled separately for each shot.) Soldiers trained to use automatics are taught to squeeze the trigger in short bursts, to allow re-aiming between firing, and so that not all of the ammunition is discharged within a few seconds. Most modern assault rifles often have a “short-burst” setting to aid the user in this.

       The term is commonly but incorrectly used to describe a semi-automatic pistol. [Some insist that semi-automatic pistols are really automatics, for the gun automatically loads itself after each shot, but this only confuses the issue.]

Ax, Axe –          A broad metal blade mounted on a shaft, used for cleaving. Decapitation by use of a large two-handed ax was the medieval punishment for traitors.

Backsword –      During the 16th and 17th centuries, the same term described one of two different basket hilted weapons:

       1) a single-edged straight blade, the precursor to the military sabre. With a single edge, the overall blade weight can be made lighter and easier to manage than a double edged broadsword and still be an effective cutting tool.

       2) a blunted stick used as an alternative to a steel blade for use in [relatively] nonlethal duels. A “backswordsman” would be one who specialized in public prizefighting duels using the wooden backsword.

Back Edge – The unsharpened edge of a single edged weapon. Although a two-edged blade does not have a back-edge, the term is sometimes used in stage combat to refer to the “weak” edge when any weapon is held – the thumb side edge rather than the knuckle or cutting edge. Sometimes mistakenly called the false edge.

Baldric –            The strap that holds a weapon or bugle onto a soldier by suspending it from the shoulder, as opposed to securing it on a waist belt.

Ball –     The metal sphere fired from a smoothbore gun or crossbow. Balls, made of metal, were the precursors to bullets, which are conical shaped.

Ballock –   A dagger with a wide long blade and very short grip, having no guard or hand protection. The term is descriptive of the shape of the handle, ballock being an old word for testicle.

Bardiche –    A curved headed two-handed polearm of northeastern medieval Europe. An exotic looking military battle-ax, the blade is about two-feet long, most often mounted on a haft of between four to six feet.

Barlow –   A maker of an early style of folding pocketknife popular in the United States during the early 1800’s.

Barrel –  The metal hollow tube from which is expelled a projectile. The barrels for the first cannons and then arquebuses were built by the same coopers who built regular wine casks, so these weapons really were metal barrels.

Baselard –   A type of shortsword and dagger of the Middle Ages, having no true pommel and usually a minimal handguard. Most had just a small flair on both ends of the handle to provide a good grip, and a shortsword style blade. Primarily a Swiss weapon.

       As a dagger, the same style was revived by Nazi Germany for military presentation items.

Basket Hilt –      For rapiers and backswords, hilts made up of strips of metal in a symmetrical design half encircling the hand. Unlike standard rapiers, the basket has an integrated knuckleguard and no quillons. Called the schiavonna in Italy, or mortuary sword in England during Cromwell’s inter-regium of the 1650’s, basket hilt swords are held using a firm hammer grip rather than a looser rapier grip. They remained extremely popular in Scotland, replacing the Claymore as their national sword.

Bastard Sword –            First developed in the 1400’s, these were long bladed broadswords balanced for primarily single hand use, but fitted with a longer than normal handle so as to allow two-handed use for especially powerful blows. Also known as the “hand-and-a-half”, but both such terms are modern.

Battle-ax –         Take a standard wood-cutting ax, make the handle thinner and longer, make the metal head twice as broad but half as thick, and you have the military battle-ax. More devastating than the sword, two-handed and single-hand varieties were used by foot soldiers, while knights on horseback used only the single-hand styles. Because of the relative thinness of the ax head, battle-axes are inefficient wood chopping implements, easily getting stuck with being able to split the wood. The obverse is true as well: wood axes make poor battle weapons because their heaviness makes them difficult to control.

Bayonet –          A small knife or spike meant to be fixed onto the end of a musket or rifle, giving the firearm the properties of a thrusting spear. In the 1600’s, the handle was simply jammed into the barrel, but thereafter the bayonet has been affixed underneath the barrel to allow for firing of the gun. Although there was some experimentation of making bayonet-swords, blade lengths of over 15” are impractical.

Bearded ax –     Of battle axes or wood axes, those with asymmetrical steel head, with the point nearest the hand significantly longer than the far point. In Europe, bearded axes were preferred by the Celts, Vikings, and Franks of the dark and middle ages, while most battle axes of the Renaissance tend to have smaller but symmetrical heads. Wood axes are not much helped by having a beard, since the extended steel is outside of the strongest cutting area of the axe. For battle axes though, the beard allows for at least some damage even if the strike was slightly off-target.

Bearing Sword –            Large double-edged straight broadswords held and carried in front of royal processions. The practice began during the Renaissance. These swords were supposedly of some famous warrior, and were generally oversized.

Beretta –            An Italian firearms manufacturer of many rifles and pistols. Their 92F semi-automatic pistol became the US standard issue in 1984. The Pentagon declined to use an American company, although this gun, designated by the Army as the M9, was known to suffer from many significant flaws. In the US, the term is also used to describe (incorrectly) any small frame semi-automatic pistol.

Bilbo – A cut and thrust sword from the Bilbao region of Spain. Developed first in the late 17th century, it featured a substantial rapier dish hilt and no other hand protection, but fitted with a wide broadsword blade. The term also includes any rapier hilted thick bladed straight swords found on battlefield throughout Europe and America until the early 1800’s. They were meant for use on the battlefield only, but were not issued as official sidearms. Bilbos and cutlasses were often purchased individually by soldiers in underfunded units that were not issued swords.

Bilboes –           A type of shackle, consisting of a long iron bar fitted with two limb constraints. By keeping the feet or hands at a fixed distance from each other, a miscreant could be inconvenienced and humiliated but still handle daily activities, even continuing to work.
       Bilboes were especially used where space limitations precluded incarceration, for example on sailing ships from the 15th to 18th centuries.

Bill –      A form of halberd or poleweapon in which the head is primarily a slightly concave large cleaver. [The word in Old English referred to a type of broadsword, and in Old Teutonic a large ax.] Bills were used by some infantry units in medieval warfare, and from the 14th through to the end of the 18th centuries were the common weapon for the civilian nightwatchmen, especially in England.

Billy Club –        A small club. The term “billy” was a variation of “bully”, which also referred to highwaymen.

Blackjack –        A small leather pouch filled with lead shot. Used as a small concealable club for whacking a victim on the head. (Originally the blackjack was a large leather bag with an outer coating of tar, used as a poor man’s bottle for carrying beer.)

Blackpowder –   Historic gunpowder. A combination of nitrogen, carbon and sulfur which, when ignited, burns extremely rapidly, causing an even more rapid expansion of gas which is used to propel a projectile to a target. When blackpowder burns it causes a dense cloud of gray smoke to hang around the gun and a lot of fouling inside the barrel.

Blade –  The essential part of a sword, as opposed to the hilt. The blade is the length of metal that actually does the cutting. Some people incorrectly refer to a complete sword as a “blade”.

       The blade of a sword has two parts – the blade proper is the part that is visible, but the steel continues inside the handle. That part is called the tang. For most blades, the tang is much narrower than the exposed blade, and the site of the abrupt narrowing is called the shoulder. The hilt rests on the shoulder of the blade.

       The blade proper is itself loosely divided into three sections: forte, middle, and foible. Some blades have grooves running lengthwise which are called fullers. Some of the thinner sporting blades may have a tip that has been blunted with a wider flat “nailhead”, referred to as the button, which may or may not be covered in rubber or leather for additional safety.

Blank –  A firing cartridge which is complete except for the bullet itself. A powder charge made for firing a gun without discharging a hard projectile.

Blank-fire –        A gun built or modified so that it can only fire a blank cartridge. It may or may not be block-barreled.

Block-barreled – A gun built or modified so that when firing a blank, no discharge travels out of the muzzle of the barrel. Designed solely to be a blank-fire gun.

Blow Back –      The type of action used in all automatic and semi-automatic firearms. For semi-automatic guns, the explosion of the cartridge not only causes the bullet to fly out, but part of the discharge is directed back into the gun. The discharge pushes he workings of the gun so as to produce a cascade of mechanical actions: kick out the pent cartridge, bring up a new one into the barrel, and pull the hammer back to firing position. The operator need only press the trigger to fire again.
       For fully automatic guns, all of the above takes place and the striker (hammer) is allowed to fire the next round without a pause. The gun will keep firing (cycling) so long as the trigger is held.
       Blow back systems have been around from the 1890’s.

Blunderbuss – A German term that means “thunder gun”, a two-handed firearm of the mid 1600’s to the late 1700’s, with a short but very wide barrel, most often with a flared muzzle. Not designed for firing a single ball or bullet but rather a handful of pellets, gravel or broken glass. This was an “assault weapon” meant for defending corridors or suppressing insurrections, never for hunting. By the way, never used by the Pilgrims, greeting card illustrations notwithstanding.

Bolt-     1) The very short projectile fired from a crossbow. Whereas arrows must flex in flight, bolt must remain rigid.

       2) The distinctive feature of the bolt-action rifle, the little lever on the right side that loads each round for firing.

Bolt-Action –        The working mechanism of some clip and magazine fed rifles. Each fired cartridge is ejected from the gun when the user lifts and pulls the manual bolt on the right side of the gun, and then the next round is put into the barrel and secured for firing when the bolt is pushed and then lowered. Bolt-actions saw their apogee during WWI, saw somewhat less service during WWII, and then survived as a hunting rifle for the rest of the century. Some snipers in SWAT units still prefer bolt-action rifles due to their stability during firing.

Bow –    A curved weapon used to fire arrows, the propulsion derived from the spring-like action of returning a string from a drawn to a resting position. Bows may be constructed of a single piece of wood (self-bow), several layers of wood or bone (composite bow), or one of several modern plastics.
       Almost all self-bows are also known as simple bows, for when unstrung have almost no curve to them, and when strung form a simple arc. All others are called recurve, and are strung against the natural curve of the bow. This allows for much greater power to be delivered to the arrow, and gives the bow the classic triple curve shape when strung, with the bow tips curving away from the shooter.

Bowie – A fighting knife of the American South and Southwest of the mid 19th century. Bowie knives cover a wide range of looks, but most have the following in common: a single edged blade of between 10 to 15 inches, at least an inch and a half wide, with a slightly curved and tapered double-edged tip and a limited straight handguard. The guard has only one function – to prevent the user’s hand from sliding forward during a stabbing and accidentally getting sliced on the blade.

Brass Knuckles –   A hand-weapon that covers the striking surface of the fist, a single well-placed blow from which can shatter the skull. Brass knuckles [which can be made of any metal] actually have two properties. The most obvious is that the striking surface of a punch is hard metal instead of fragile fingers. The second is that the grip allows for a much stronger fist to be made, much as holding a roll of coins improves a punch. 

Breach –            For firearms, it refers to the end of the barrel closest to the shooter. As opposed to the muzzle. The gunpowder and bullet need to be at the breach end for firing. Most guns built after 1870 are referred to as breach loaders, for the bullet and powder are introduced directly into this end of the barrel rather than sliding it down from the muzzle. 

Break Open –     A type of shotgun with a hinged frame that can open just in front of the trigger, allowing the shooter to load the gun at the breach end and then close the gun again before firing. A very few pistol styles were also designed the same way.

Broadsword –    This term has changed a few times over the millennia. At first, as far back as the time of Beowulf, it meant a single-hand wide-bladed sword. Then the term fell into disuse until it was resurrected in the 17th century to describe the straight-bladed basket hilt infantry sword which was the forerunner of the sabre, and distinguished from the backsword by being double edged. By the 1800’s, it became again attached to the medieval sword of war, and that is pretty much where it has remained. In England, it still might refer to any of the above mentioned weapons, whereas in the US, we only use it to describe the single or doublehand medieval sword of at least three feet in length.

Broomhandle Mauser –  The first practical and widely used semi-automatic pistol, saw extensive use on the German side of WWI, not merely by officers but also by the infantry as an effective weapon for close-quarter trench fighting. Mauser was the name of a manufacturer that produced dozens of firearm styles, and the “broomhandle” part of the name refers to the distinctive shape of the grip.

Brown Bess –    The nickname given to the British military musket of the late 1700’s. The barrel was often browned (as opposed to blued) to resist rust.

Browning –        An American inventor and designer of several firearms. Many of his patents were used by Winchester, Remington and Colt in their most famous firearms. The majority of his semiauto pistols were and still are manufactured by a Belgium company.
       At least one play (The Physicists) makes reference to a “Browning revolver”. Sorry, but there is no such firearm. All Browning pistols were and continue to be semiautomatics, not revolvers. The erroneous term has been common in England since the first semiautos were produced at the turn of the century. It is still relatively common in that country to call any multishot pistol a revolver, regardless of the firing mechanism.

Buck knife –      Technically, it is any knife made by Buck Knives of Idaho, and they made many styles. But colloquially, a “buck knife” has come to mean any wide bladed single-edge lockback folding knife.

Buckler –           A small shield, usually less than 15” in diameter, used as a defensive/offensive support when fighting with the sword or rapier. Bucklers are grasped from the middle by the hand, not resting on the arm as you would with a true shield. A civilian, not military, shield, although many mercenary soldiers carried them into battle during the Renaissance for hand-to-hand fighting.

Buckshot –        As opposed to birdshot, the relatively large pellets in certain shotgun cartridges. Buckshot would be used to bring down medium sized mammals and humans, but is too large for bird hunting and ironically too small to bring down larger game such as deer.

Bulldog –           A snub nose British revolver with a smallish grip, usually of higher caliber, 38 and 45 being the most common. Popular during the 1910’s and 20’s as a pocket pistol for self-protection.
       Another gun, built in the US in the 1970’s and 80’s, was also trademarked as the Bulldog, and had many of the same characteristics.

Bullet –  a ball of metal, usually conical in shape, for use in a firearm with a rifled barrel. The conical shape allows the spinning bullet to fly straighter and longer, just like a thrown football.
       All modern bullets come already attached to the proper cartridge and primer, making it ready to fire. When the gun is fired, only the bullet leaves the gun. The cartridge remains behind.

Bull Pup –   Slang for a modern assault-rifle layout in which the clip is placed between the stock and the trigger instead of between the trigger and the barrel. This allows the rifle to have the best features of the long-barreled M-16 and the short and comfortable Uzi. Most military rifles of the future will apparently follow this design, as more encounters will be in crowded urban settings.

Butt  –   For rifles and shotguns, the end of the stock braced against the shoulder. For the quarterstaff, the end not pointed at the opponent. Since both ends of the quarterstaff can be used to strike, the designation of butt end can change with nearly every action.

Butterfly Knife – Same name, two different knives.

•    The Western butterfly is a relatively recent development, a way to circumvent the restrictions imposed on switchblade knives. The butterfly has no springs, but the blade is connected at one end to two sections of handle. The three parts are freely moving so that the handle sections can either close around the blade or swing back around toward each other, exposing the blade. With a little practice, it can be opened and closed with one hand, the movement of the knife vaguely giving an appearance of the flutter of butterfly wings.
•        The Chinese butterfly knife [Ba Jaan Dao] is far older, and is more accurately a hatchet with a knucklebow. In “traditional” (modern) wu-shu practice, it is fought with in pairs.

Cage Hilt –         For rapiers and certain other swords, a guard style that is built of interconnected strands of metal. Differing from a swept hilt in that there is generally more protection to the hand and the strands are laid out in a relatively symmetrical pattern.

Caliber –            The internal diameter of the barrel of a gun, measured in either hundreds of an inch or in millimeters. So a 38 caliber gun has a barrel opening (and therefore a bullet size) of 38/100’s of an inch, or about a third of an inch wide.

Cannon –           A very big smoothbore gun, but still just a gun, using the same firing system basics.

Cap –    For percussion firearms, it is the tiny thimble-shaped item placed on the outside of the gun which actually sets off the powder charge inside the barrel. The percussion cap is single use only, and is coated on its inside with a quick igniting compound, which sparks when struck by the hammer.

       For toy guns, it is the very small amount of gunpowder glued into a piece of plastic or paper that, when struck by the hammer, creates a small explosion.

       Modern city slang also uses the term as a verb, “to cap” someone meaning to shoot them. It is not used as a noun to refer to the bullet.

Carbine –           Originally a shortened musket designed to be fired from horseback, carbine now means a “shorter” rifle. Shorter than what? Whatever the manufacturer of the rifle decrees. There is no standardization of rifle lengths, so none for what constitutes a carbine. Most gun makers tend to make carbines at around six to nine inches smaller than whatever the rifle is. A carbine will be of course lighter than the rifle, at the expense of distance firing accuracy.

Cartridge –         The cylindrical case, usually of brass or cardboard, which holds the powder charge and projectile (bullet or pellets) together as one unit.

Case of Rapiers –          Two rapiers, built as a set, intended for fighting with one rapier in each hand.

Cat o’ Nine Tails –     The short flail used as an instrument of punishment. Especially popular for use on 16th and 17th century ships, the cat had a short stock and several thin strips of leather that would break the skin of the exposed back. The strips sometimes had small metal barbs on them in order to maximize skin damage.
       As a form of punishment, it is the equivalent of the common whipping, but on a sailing vessel there is simply no room to wield a whip.

Centerfire –        Type of cartridge ammunition in which the firing pin of the gun must strike the center of the primer so that ignition can occur.  Also, a gun designed in this way.

Chamber –         As a noun, that part of a firearm that holds the cartridge in place for its firing position. As a verb, it means to work the action of a gun so that a round is mechanically worked into the chamber.

Cinqueda –        The very broad-bladed knife of the ancient Romans. Not a battlefield weapon, the cinqueda gets its name from the “five-fingers” width of the blade at the hilt. Wedge or “pie” shaped, some reached lengths of almost two feet. Worn across the small of the back in a sheath suspended from a belt. As a knife or a smallish sword, it gained a renewed popularity in Italy from 1470 to 1550.

Claymore –        From the Gaelic words claidheamh mor, meaning “great sword”, it is the two-handed sword of medieval Scotland, especially of the Highland clans. This massive five-foot sword was best used by foot warriors against English horsemen riding more slowly on the rocky terrain of the north, where the Scots could use the long reach of the heavy blade to cut through the legs of the horses and then dispatch the fallen knight.
       The term is an ancient one, revived during the 1700’s to also include the singlehand basket-hilt sword. This has led to a great deal of confusion and dispute amoung antiquarians as to which is the correct use. While the debate continues, it is helpful to refer only to the large two-handed weapon as being a Claymore, and for the sake of clarity to call the other simply a Scottish basket-hilt.

Clip –    For automatic and semiautomatic firearms, the often removable magazine which both houses and feeds the bullets into the firing chamber. Within a clip, the ammunition is stacked like cord wood, pushed upward by a spring.

Clip-Fed –          Any multi-shot firearm that receives each successive round from a spring loaded (and usually removable) stacked-ammunition container known as the clip.

Club –   A heavy stick used with one hand, with the hitting-end usually thicker than the gripping end. Types include the stone head composite club, the baseball bat, the mace, the billy club, the Irish shillelagh, etc. This is of course an ancient weapon (even baboons have been known to pick up heavy tree limbs and defend themselves against attacking leopards) yet is still universally used by modern police forces in the form of the nightstick. Rarely less than one foot or more than three feet in length.

Colichemarde –   A smallsword variant of the 18th century, with a distinctive blade, wide near the guard and then suddenly narrow about two thirds of the way down. The theory was that it was supposed to make the blade more resistant to breakage, but in practice the blades broke just as often as the thinner common smallsword, and usually right at the point of the narrowing.

Colt –    An American firearms manufacturer that has been around since the early 1800’s, and has provided a wide variety of guns for civilian use as well as for police and military contracts. Colts span all the way from the first practical percussion revolvers of 1835 to the modern M-5.

Corseca –          Another name for either the runka or for the spontoon, two types of bladed polearms.

Cosh –  A kind of nautical billy club. Short, with one and sometimes both ends knob-shaped with a thin handle or center. Most often made of wood, but some were made of carefully woven hemp rope. Nicknamed the “life preserver”.

Courtsword –     A sword worn in the presence of or presented by royalty. Richly engraved and gilded, they were purely for show and never intended to be useful weapons. Although the concept of wearing a non-practical sword this way began in the mid 1500’s, fake (“dancing”) rapiers looked like their practical counterparts, whereas true courtswords were developed as very elaborate variations of the smallswords of the eighteen and nineteenth centuries.

Crossbow –   Technically it is a miniature version of the ancient Roman ballista, but in this case the mechanically-firing torsion bow is portable and fires a sharpened rod rather than ball-shaped projectile. The rod is called a bolt rather than an arrow. Crossbows in Europe go back to the 12th century AD, but were used in China as far back as the second century BC.

Cudgel –            A short rustic club, usually less than two feet long.

Cup Hilt –          For rapiers, a guard style which incorporates a solid concave metal hand protection. It can range in shape from a simple shallow lens to a half-sphere, known as a full cup.

Cutlass –           Literally meaning “cut rope”, it is a short sabre designed for shipboard use, where a standard length sword would only get in the way of the rigging. Cutlass blades were never over two feet long.

Cuttoe –            Slang 18th century term for any single-edged short bladed sword, usually slightly curved, whether used as a cutlass or hunting sword.

Dag –    The term given to short-gripped pistols when differentiating them from the large cavalry pistols of the 16th through 18th centuries. Dags were normally wheellock, not flintlock.

Dagger –           A double edged knife with an acute angle at its point; primarily built for thrusting. Daggers are weapons, not utilitarian knives. Blade lengths of more than eighteen inches put the weapon in the realm of short sword rather than dagger. Daggers disappear from men’s dress by about 1660.

Dancing Sword –           In 16th century Europe, a sword worn as an indispensable part of elegant dress for a court appearance or formal dance. Most men of position purchased a rapier for this and no other reason, so the blade did not need to be of high quality. In order to save money, many “dancing swords” did not even have real blades. Men who would have only occasional need for such an item could rent them for the day, often from theatre companies.

Derringer –         The name Derringer can mean either the manufacturer (which made several different styles of handguns), or one of three different blackpowder single shot pistols of the 1800’s, or a completely different style of two-shot pistol of the 1900’s (add to that the problem of three different manufacturers trying to use the Derringer name, and it gets really fun). To make matters worse, newspaper reporters of the 1800’s often called any pocket pistol a derringer.

Dirk –    A straight dagger with a long and thin blade. Dirk blades are by convention never more than an inch wide, and generally are the length of one’s forearm.

Doglock –         An early precursor to the flintlock mechanism. It incorporated a small hook that had to be manually engaged in order to hold the hammer in the half cock (loading) position. For any kind of machine, a “dog” is any simple device that keeps something else from moving.

Double Action – Describes the working of the hammer for a pistol. On double action guns, the hammer will pull back automatically before dropping forward whenever the trigger is squeezed. As opposed to single action. In other words, the hammer on a double action gun does two actions although your trigger finger does only one. The benefit of double action is that the user can fire the gun as quickly as they can pull the trigger, although it tends to jar the gun slightly and so can disturb the accuracy of the shooter’s aim.
       Most revolvers can fire in either single or double action. Shooters will use the double action when firing several shots quickly; single action when careful aim is necessary. Single action also reduces the power necessary from the shooter’s finger, so is often used by those with weaker hand strength.

Dragoon –         A corruption of the French word for dragon.

• A short musket of the 1700’s designed to be light enough to hang from a soldier’s belt and also fire from horseback.
• In the same period and beyond, a soldier in a military unit trained to fight either as infantry or cavalry, depending on the situation.
• Any of the weapons [sword, pistol, rifle] used by a dragoon.

Dry-Fire –          To pull the trigger on an unloaded gun, causing the hammer to strike an empty chamber. Without the cushioning effect of the hammer landing on soft brass, dry-firing is extremely damaging to any gun, whether real, prop or toy.

Dueling Pistol – Not to be flippant, but it’s any pistol used in a duel. It is not descriptive of any specific weapon type, but rather a marketing term. During the 18th and 19th centuries, pistols were sometimes sold in pairs and in a wooden case, catering to the upper class who were more likely to have to use them in a duel. But there was nothing distinctive about the pistols themselves, so the dueling pistol changes with each generation and concomitant improvement in pistol technology, from flintlock to percussion to revolver.

Dueling Sword – Again as with the dueling pistol, there is no standard look of the sword used for duels. Whatever is the civilian sword of the given period is the defacto dueling sword, although when the sword ceased to be worn (around 1800) it was obvious that those who purchased them were not doing so for self-defense nor to adorn their attire.

Elephant Gun –  Any large caliber rifle either specifically designed or retrofitted for big-game hunters in Africa and India. While most longarms in standard calibers can bring down large mammals in one shot, they are inadequate for the purpose of stopping an elephant, hippopotamus or rhinoceros. The larger body mass of those species requires that the bullet penetrate much deeper than would be necessary on deer or antelope for example.
     In the 1800’s, elephant guns were most often converted percussion muskets or shotguns, with barrel diameters of nearly an inch and a half in diameter. The round balls that were fired from them weighed up to half a pound, and at that mass required very large powder charges. Even then, muzzle velocity was fairly low. A long barrel would improve accuracy and muzzle velocity,. but the extra weight tends to make the gun harder to easily handle. For that reason, most hunters preferred guns with comparatively short barrels.
     With the advent of rifled barrels and modern powder, cartridges and bullets, later elephant guns could be made in much smaller calibers but with much more power. Typically in the .38 to .50 caliber range, 20th century elephant guns look no different than any other full-sized rifle. As with the deer and squirrel rifles, there is nothing distinctive about the look or action of any particular gun that makes it an elephant gun, merely the type of ammunition it is capable of firing. So although the ammunition could be considerably longer than normal (to hold more gunpowder) the the gun itself looks like any other large sporting rifle.

Enfield –            The British military bolt-action rifle of the first half of the 20th century. From the city in Middlesex, England in which it, and all of the other firearms from the Royal Small Arms Factory, were manufactured. Now a common civilian sporting rifle.

Epee –  is merely the French word for sword. In English, it’s another word that has been saddled with more meanings than it can comfortably hold.
       The epee proper is a sporting weapon based loosely on the European dueling smallsword of the early 19th century. The blade is triangular in cross section with a deep groove running down its center and a very blunted or even turned back tip. When the sport became popular enough to be an Olympic event, both the blade and simplified guard became standardized into their current forms. So just as with the word foil, epee can mean one of several things:

• the entire weapon used in the Olympic sport of epee fencing
• the large off-centered half-dome guard of the Olympic weapon
• the blade used for the Olympic weapon, regardless of the guard
• [incorrectly] any blunted light dueling or sport weapon
• [even more incorrectly] any single-hand sword with a thin blade

Estoc – A type of medieval longsword with a thin blade, meant for thrusting but not cutting.  In England called the tuck.

Estoque –   The killing sword of the matador. Uniquely, it has a straight edged one-inch wide blade that is purposely bent about eight inches from the tip. This bend helps drive the sword into the bull, rather than risk its skimming off the back.

Eye Ax –           A single-hand piercing axe of Bronze-aged Semitic peoples. Although introduced into Ancient Egypt, it never became an item of common use there. The name came from archeologists, and derives from the two holes drilled into the back of the axe head, through which twine or leather could lash the bronze head onto the wooden shaft. The “eyes” are therefore only noticeable when the head is not connected to the shaft, as the first archeologists found them.

Falcata –        A single-edged inward-curved short sword with a distinctive open knuckleguard. Found in the bronze aged cultures of the Mediterranean, especially Greece and Celtic Spain. The memory if not the shape of the falcata continued on to name the medieval falchion and the 19th century Argentine facón (dueling knife).

Falchion –       A medieval single-edged heavy-bladed short sword. Used primarily by the untrained infantry as a chopping weapon, the blade is similar to the modern machete.

False Edge –     on single edged sabre blades, the last few inches of the back edge have been filed down to a sharp edge, not with the idea of attempting a backhand cut but in order to reduce resistance in the event of a thrust. Part of, but not the same as, the back edge.

Flail –    Although technically a flail is the agricultural tool which has a free swinging stick connected to another stick, for weapons it is anything that swings free at the end of a handle [chain, ball, leather strips, etc.].

Flick Knife –      A nickname for the gravity knife. The name is appropriate, as the blades on these knives are not spring loaded, so a flick of the wrist is needed to pop-up the blade.

Flintlock –            Firing system for longarms and pistols in which, as the hammer drops, a piece of flint is made to scrape against a steel plate sending a shower of sparks that in turn sets off the main powder charge. In common use from 1660 to 1850.

Foible – The weakest part of a sword blade; the third closest to the tip. Usually used in reference to the more “bendy” blades such as the foil or epee.

Foil –    one word, many meanings:

• in Shakespeare’s time any blunted sword used for practice. Called that because they blunted the weapon by hammering the tip flat (“foiled”, as in aluminum foil) and then bending it back.
• the specific sword used for the modern sport competition of foil fencing. The sword, reduced to its thrusting basics, is used for Olympic fencing, where cutting attacks are not counted and only thrusts to the torso are valid. Originally developed to increase mental quickness for epee dueling students.
• the blade of the Olympic foil.
• incorrectly – any stage sword, fight-worthy or not.

Forte –  The strongest part of a sword blade; the third of the exposed blade closest to the handguard. The least flexible part and therefore the only part strong enough to use when blocking.

Francisca –  A small throwing ax of the early Frank tribes of Europe.

Frog –   An open leather pocket that can fit onto a belt or sash, into which can be secured a scabbard or a small axe. When pistols were finally small enough to be worn, scabbard frogs became the first holsters. The origin of the word is unknown, but dates back to the 18th century, and my guess is that it started as an English mispronunciation of a foreign, probably Dutch, term.

       On stage, frogs are now often used by themselves as a substitute for the scabbard or sheath. In this way once the actor draws the sword, there is no worry about banging about or tripping over the dangling scabbard.

Fuller –        On a sword or knife blade, the groove running through a portion or all of its length. Sometimes gruesomely called a blood groove, fullers are used to lighten the blade without loosing any of the strength. Indeed, often the blade is more rigid for having the groove cut into it than the plain flat steel would be.

Fusilier –       A rifleman, a sharpshooter. Fusil is an archaic term for a blackpowder rifled musket.

Garand –        The semi-automatic rifle invented by John C Garand that became the standard US military firearm during WWII and the Korean War. Also known by its military designation, the M-1.

Garrote –           Originally a simple way of securing a load on a donkey’s back, a couple of sticks connected with a string or wire are twisted, slowly tightening the string. Now used to describe any apparatus for strangulation using a thin wire, normally improvised from whatever is handy.

Gat – Short for “gatling gun”, but used during the 1920’s as slang for the Thompson Submachine gun. Currently, it has become slang for any pistol.

Gatling Gun –        A large machine gun of the late 1800’s which used a series of semi-automatic firing barrels arranged on a cylinder and turned by a crank, automatically firing and reloading as long as the crank was turned. Although it was available during the American Civil War, it saw very limited use there, and only by the Northern forces. It remained in use until the end of that century, but was a difficult weapon of transport and set up.

Gauge –          The measurement of the bore (barrel-width) of the shotgun. Instead of simply measuring the opening and stating the diameter, gauge is a convoluted way of describing that diameter without any benefit of clarity.
       To determine the gauge of a shotgun barrel, a ball of lead of the same diameter as the internal measurement is cast, and then weighed. The number of these balls that it would take in order to weigh one pound is the gauge of that shotgun. So you can see that a 16 gauge shotgun has a smaller barrel opening that than of a 12 gauge, and a 20 gauge is smaller still. To restate: a larger gauge number is a smaller diameter.
       If shotguns were measured by caliber rather than gauge, then a 12 gauge would be known as a .69 caliber gun.

Gewer –        A German military designation of something built for military use.

Gladius –      A short sword of the ancient Romans.

Glaive –        A polearm with a simple but large single-edged cutting blade, sometimes augmented with a spike on the backedge. A sword blade on a pole.

Glock –         An Austrian firearms manufacturer whose successful semi-automatic pistol has become the NATO and now US Armed Forces standard, as well as being the latest standard issue sidearm for most police departments. Distinctive because the exterior frame is made of a lightweight polymer plastic. Hollywood movies created a myth that Glocks are therefore invisible to X-rays or metal detectors, but actually the polymer is even more dense than steel and shows up quite clearly on airport scanners, and there are plenty of steel parts inside the gun.

Gravity Knife –   A hidden-bladed knife in which the blade resides inside the handle but is not spring loaded. A button holds the blade in place, and when pressed releases it, but the blade must then either be shaken out, flicked out, or pointed towards the ground and allowed to drop out into its fully exposed position. It is neither a switchblade nor a retractable knife. Also known as a flick knife.

Grenade  –         A small, usually fist-sized, bomb in which the primary destructive power comes not from the explosion but from the quantity of shrapnel produced by the fragmentation of its own casing. Grenades are either thrown or launched, sometimes from an adapted rifle, and have been around since the 1600’s. A soldier who specializes in the use of this weapon was known as a grenadier.

Grip –    The part of the sword onto which the hand actually makes contact. Formally, the grip should only refer to the leather or wire covering of the handle, so a wooden handled sword technically doesn’t have a grip at all, only a handle. Most people use the terms interchangeably.

Guard – For edged weaponry, the part between the handle and the blade; the part that protects [guards] the hand.

Gun –    A tube of metal from which a projectile is discharged by using expanding gases. Strict military use of the word is limited to cannon and other heavy fixed-mounted long-barreled weapons, whereas common usage refers to only pistols, shotguns and rifles.

Gunpowder –     A dry chemical compound meant to burn extremely quickly, releasing rapidly expanding gases. The gaseous expansion is what propels a bullet to its target.

       Gunpowder used in blanks will either be blackpowder or “smokeless”. Blackpowder is ancient, used from the time of the very first cannons until just after the American Civil War, when it was largely supplanted by the modern “smokeless” powders. Those still produce smoke, but in much less quantity than does blackpowder, and the smoke that they do produce dissipates much faster, making it more difficult to locate the position of a shooter.  Smokeless powders are much more explosive than blackpowder, however, so can only be used in guns in which the barrels are specifically designed for modern compounds.

Handcuffs –    Developed in 1862, handcuffs differ from old style shackles in that, as they close, they adjust to fit almost any wrist size. Made of steel, they are also lighter and more easily portable than iron manacles. 

Hackbutt –         English term for the arquebus.

Halberd –    A polearm whose head has all of the features of a spear, ax, and hook. In this fully developed form it is seen as early as the mid 1400’s.

Hammer –          One term, two very different weapon meanings.

       In medieval and Renaissance warfare, it was literally a hammer used as a club, double-headed and heavy at first [think of Thor’s hammer] but then gradually becoming lighter with each passing century. A hammer is useful in fighting against helmeted or armored opponents, for it won’t pierce through the steel [which can cause an ax to get stuck in the armor], but the dent which it produces can act as a wedge, and that could be as deadly as any sword cut.
       As crossbows became more numerous, the war hammer faded from the battlefield.

       In firearms, the hammer is the part that swings around and actually strikes the firing pin, which in turn strikes against the cartridge or primer so as to ignite the gunpowder. Sometimes called the striker, the hammer is actually quite light. What really has the driving force is the strong mainspring that pushes it forward.
       On flintlock guns, the part that holds the flint and then drives forward when the trigger is pulled should not really be called the hammer but rather the “flint jaws”, but modern usage has nearly eliminated the term. Nowadays flintlock is used to describe the entire weapon, and that part on top is called the hammer by nearly everyone.

Hammerless –    A term for some revolvers in which the hammer is not seen from the outside, but in truth a better term should be recessed hammer.

Handle –            For edged weapons, the part with which one holds the sword. Sometimes called the grip, but grip is actually the name of any material wrapped around the handle.

       The British, for some reason, when speaking only of swords use the term to describe the entire hilt, and many sword collectors on this side of the pond do the same. It makes for a great deal of confusion.

Hang-fire –         A dangerous event in which the trigger is pulled on a firearm, the hammer strikes the cartridge, but there is a delay until the cartridge explodes. How to know whether the misfire was a dud or a hang-fire? How long do you wait until you find out? Many people have been injured and even killed by someone making the wrong choice.

Hanger –            1) any of the cheap curved sabres from the mid-1700 to the late 1800’s, mass produced to quickly outfit the broad masses of infantry. Usually with a simple two dimensional knucklebow for hand protection.

       2) an open-ended leather sword holder [see frog].

Hilt –     Originally, the handle of a weapon, but now more correctly the entirety of the sword that is not the visible blade.
       The British, for some reason, use the term to describe only the guard, and many sword collectors on this side of the pond do the same. It makes for a great deal of confusion.

Holster –            The word corresponds to an ancient Dutch word for arrow quiver, but does not appear in English until the mid-1600’s. The first holders for pistols were made to strap onto the saddle, as the pistols of the time were too large to be worn as one would a sword. It is not until the mid-1700’s that the pistol becomes light enough so that holsters can be worn on a soldier’s belt, yet not until the early 1800’s do armies actually include it as part of a uniform and produce the first holsters to accommodate them.

Hunting Sword –            Until the advent of reliable multishot firearms, hunters often carried a short, stout, simple sword as a weapon of last resort should the quarry become dangerous. Straight blades were preferred over curved.

Jackknife –        A folding pocket knife meant as an all-purpose tool, as opposed to a penknife, for example, which has only one principle use. The term “Jack” originally meant a regular guy, an everyman, or a relatively poor man.

Kalashnikov –    The last name of the designer of the rifle ultimately built as the standard Soviet issue submachine gun. Also can refer to the rifle itself, which is also known as the AK-47, and its close cousin, the AK-74.

Katana –      In medieval Japan, one of the swords of the samurai class. The two-handed katana is perhaps the only sword ever designed that excelled as both a civilian and battlefield weapon. So well balanced is the three foot weapon that, even though it is a two handed sword, it is easier to use as a single hand sword than is the western single hand military sabre.

Kentucky Rifle – A misnomer for the Pennsylvania rifled musket of the 18th century. A hunting, not a military, firearm.

Knife –  A short cutting blade, either single or double edged, set in a handle. The blade length may be any size, although once it gets to eighteen inches can start to look an awful lot like a sword. A knife is meant as a tool, not a weapon, as opposed to a dagger.

Kopesh –           The unusual curved short hacking bronze sword of the ancient Egyptians. The shape provides a very strong cutting power of an ax with some of the slicing power of a curved sabre. When the English translation of the Bible speaks of the Egyptians using their “scimitars”, this is the sword they mean, as the scimitar had not yet been developed when the Old Testament was written.

Kukri –     The knife of the Gurkas of Nepal, a curved knife with the cutting edge on the inside rather than the outside of the curve. The shape is similar to the Ibero-Celtic falcata (falchion).

Kwaiken –    In medieval Japan, the knife of a woman of samurai class. It had a short blade, only about 4 or 5 inches, either single or double edge but always straight, and meant as a self defense tool. If used for the ritual suicide known as sepuku, this knife would be used to open key veins, and the woman would pass out slowly to death.

Lochaber Axe – Any of the two-handed battle axes favored by Scottish warriors during the 17th and 18th centuries. The term is a catch-all for many sizes and shapes of war axe, so there is no single specific look for the Lochaber, although the majority will have most of the following features in common: a wooden pole of at least five feet and no more than eight feet in length, a broad, wide chopping surface of between eight inches to two feet in spread, and a spike or hook on the back edge. As such, many bardiches, halberds, bills, and glaives become rechristened “Lochaber” simply by having been used by a Scot.

Lance – a spear which is used only from horseback. Never thrown, the lance is used to impale opponents from a charge, and were generally over ten feet long.

Lever-Action –    working action for certain rifles in which a pivoting lever underneath the rifle ejects the spent round and loads in the subsequent round into the firing chamber.

Linstock –          An early 18th century artilleryman’s polearm. A center vertical fighting blade with two thin curving arms, mounted on an eight foot pole. The arms held the burning fuse used to ignite the cannon, and the spear head was there as a defensive weapon of last resort. But the end of the century, the spear head was eliminated and the shaft reduced to only three feet.

Lock – For firearms, the mechanism which sets-off the ammunition on a single-fire muzzle loaded gun. Some of the more common types of locks are the matchlock, wheellock, doglock, flintlock, and percussion lock. The lock (with its attached mechanical components) was one of the three main sections of a firearm, the other two being the wooden stock and the iron barrel [from which we get the phrase “lock, stock and barrel“].

Lockback –        Said of folding knives that strongly lock into place when open. Most folding knives can easily close by simply pushing on the back edge. To close a lockback, one must press down on a stiff spring release before pushing on the blade.

Longarm –         A firearm which must be held and operated with both hands, and generally longer than three feet. 

Longbow –        More correctly known as the Welsh bow, it is a single piece of wood, usually yew, about six feet tall, firing an arrow of nearly one yard in length. When fired by a trained soldier, it had an effective range of nearly a quarter of a mile.

Longsword –      A broadsword. In Romeo & Juliet, Capulet calls for his longsword in the opening battle, and tradition usually has the two fathers flourishing very long two-handed swords, but the sword he is requesting is actually a single-hand weapon with a three-foot long and fairly wide blade. He’s asking for his sword of war, used normally while mounted, as opposed to a rapier.

Luger –      German arms designer Georg Luger developed the model P-08 semiautomatic pistol of WWII fame (although it was widely used in the first World War as well). The gun stayed in production from 1908 until 1943.

M –  Using M and then a number is a common way for military arms manufacturers around the world to designate different models of weapons. Whether rifle, pistol, grenade, or tank, the “M” merely stands for “model number”. The numbers that follow sometimes refer to the year that the item was developed, but at other times are completely arbitrary.

M-1 –     The US Army designation for the semiautomatic rifle used during WWII and the Korean War. Also known as the Garand, for its designer, it was intended to be only a transitional stopgap piece as the arsenal moved from the bolt action rifle of WWI and on to a light machine gun. The M-1, however, proved to be a very successful design, being easy to operate, nearly indestructible, and cheap to mass produce. The rifle’s formal name is the Springfield M-1, and there are over a dozen official variations on the basic layout, not counting the M-1 carbine, which has the same stock and firing system but uses pistol ammunition.

       To make things a little more confusing, M-1 was also the Army designation for the Tommy Gun.

M-4 –     The latest incarnation of the M-16, although mechanically the same, has so many integral additions (including nightvision scope, IT compatibility, and grenade launcher) that it deserved its own designation.

M-9 –   When the US Army decided to have the Italian Beretta 92 become their standard issue pistol, they changed the designated model number to something that to them sounded more military.

M-16 – The American military standard issue infantry weapon from the Vietnam War until the Second Iraq War, and the first made with an all aluminum frame. It is a fully automatic rifle which has been in use, with modifications, since 1966. Many US allies have purchased M-16’s for their own armed forces, although the gun is still plagued by some very serious reliability and jamming problems. Since 1982, the fully automatic feature was removed in favor of automatically firing in three-shot bursts, so cannot truly be called an assault rifle.  The Colt AR-15 is the civilian version of the same gun.

Mac-10 –  Also known as the Inghram, it is one of the smallest high-capacity assault pistols, first developed in 1970. Note that the bullet clip in the handgrip is very long, increasing its capacity to 30 rounds compared to a regular semi-automatic pistol.
     The Mac-10 was famous for its compact size, making it ideal for use in high-profile protection (such as the Secret Service) where the user must carry the weapon under a standard suit jacket. But its greater use came with covert activities, as the frame is built to be a natural sound suppressor. When fitted with a silencer (almost as long as the gun itself), the gun shot is so muffled that only the mechanical sound of the bolt moving back and forth can be heard.

Mace –    A club with a metal head and metal shaft. (A weapon with a metal head and a wooden shaft is more accurately termed a composite club.) The head can be a solid or hollow sphere, or an array of flanges set in a circle. The wider use of maces in the 14th century came about as a direct reaction to larger number of warriors wearing plate armour. The impact from the rounded head could stave in the armour, causing more damage that one could with sword or axe. (Medieval clerics sometimes preferred the mace when fighting, for as a weapon which breaks bones but doesn’t necessarily draw blood, it was justified as being more in tune with Christian ideals.)

Machete –          A long bladed cleaver; a single-edged short sword of the West Indies first used as an agricultural tool to clear heavy brush and cultivate crops in the mid-1500’s. Still used to cut vegetation, the machete is the last remaining sword that humans still use with which to kill each other.

Machine Gun –   A mounted gun capable of automatic loading and continuous fire. Technically, a true machine gun is too large to be held while firing. The single-soldier models are known as submachine guns.

Magazine –        In multi-shot breach-loaders that are not revolvers, the magazine is the springloaded container where the bullets are housed until introduced mechanically into the firing chamber. There are three types of magazines. Clips house the bullets stacked side-by-side directly underneath the chamber, tubes house the bullets end-to-end underneath the barrel, and drums can hold 50 or even 100 rounds side-by-side but in a spiral.
       The word is derived from the Arabic “makhazin”, meaning a storehouse or warehouse.

Magnum – From the Latin meaning “great” and secondarily “large”, this is an ammunition designation that plays a bit with the normal caliber numbering system. A 357 magnum or 44 magnum will have a slightly smaller diameter than a comparable 38 or 45, but carries far more gunpowder in a longer cartridge. More powder propelling a slightly smaller bullet can increase the muzzle velocity by over 50%, therefore more force can be transmitted for impact. It does not in any way have anything to do with the look or the size of the gun itself. 357 and 44 magnum ammunition was developed first, and used in standard 38 and 45 caliber guns. It was only later that some gun models were specifically built in the magnum calibers.

Main Gauche –   From the French meaning “left hand”, it is a dagger with a stout and long blade [from 12 to 20 inches in length], used only as a companion weapon when fighting with the rapier, not as a stand-alone dagger. There is nothing intrinsically left handed about the dagger besides the fact that the right hand of the fighter would be holding a rapier.

Mameluke –   Hilt style distinctive of the sabres of the Mamluk cavalry of Egypt. These thin bladed curved swords featured a short cross-hilt, no knucklebow, and an off-centered swelling of the handle instead of a pommel. The style has become popular as a presentation sword among modern Western military forces, for example the US Marine Corps.

Manacles –        Any metal (usually iron) non-adjustable restraint that secures the wrists. A type of shackle.

Matchlock –         The type of firing mechanism used in early muskets. When the trigger latch was pulled, a slow burning fuse [match] would drop forward onto the touchhole and ignite the gunpowder. The lit fuse was a long rope-like coil, several feet in length, simply carried over the soldier’s shoulder, the lit end clamped onto the hammer of the musket.

Mauser –           A German firearms manufacturer most famous for its bolt-action rifle and semi-automatic pistol of WWI.

Morning Star –   Another name for a spiked-headed mace. A translation of the German “morgenstern”.

Mortuary Sword –           This was a nineteenth century term describing a seventeenth century English basket hilt sword. These swords often had generic chiseled profiles of a man’s head on the hilts, and to the Victorians resembled the martyred King Charles I. In truth, these swords were used by both sides of the English civil war.

Musket –           The name for the infantry blackpowder longarm, whether matchlock, flintlock or percussion. In the 16th century, different sized firearms were named for different birds of prey, musket being a corruption of the French word for a breed of sparrowhawk. It quickly became the generic name for any longarm.

Muzzle –            The end of a gun barrel from which the bullet exits. The “business end” of the gun. Until the 1870’s the only practical and reliable firearms were muzzleloaders, meaning the gunpowder and ball were emptied into the barrel from the muzzle and then pushed down to the firing position at the breach end.

Navaja –   A swing-out folding knife of the Andalusian region of Spain, featuring a slightly curved blade, and producing a distinctive ratcheting sound when opened. The knife can be partially flick-opened with one hand, but only after the first part of the swing-out is started with the other hand.

Night-Stick –      Up until the 1910’s, city police did not wear guns but did use the thin two-foot club known as a truncheon or nightstick. By the late 20th century, the nightstick added a sidebar, which converted it from a simple club to a versatile immobilization tool as well as a more powerful striking device. It got its name from the simple fact that it was first used by nightwatchmen patrolling private property after dark during the 19th century.

Over and Under –           Of double barreled shotguns and rifles, those in which the barrels are stacked one above the other, rather than side-by-side.

Pappenheimer – A distinctive rapier guard style featuring two perforated round plates. There is no reason to suppose that these swords were any more popular than any other rapier style, and the tiny perforations did nothing to lighten the hilt.

Partisan –          Poleweapon used by irregular units during the Renaissance. The styles varied enormously, but most have several blade points projecting symmetrically from the head.

Patch Cutter –    Not a fighting weapon, but a small broad bladed knife with a curved integrated rod as a handle carried by percussion riflemen. Used to cut off the excess paper or cloth wad around the musket ball just as it’s being loaded into the barrel.

Pavis –  A giant shield, generally rectangular and usually from four to six feet in height, meant to protect medieval infantrymen from the shower of crossbow arrows. Many had small hinged poles connected to the back so they could be free standing when in use on the battlefield.

Pen Knife –        A small folding knife with a narrow blade. The name comes from its primary function – periodically giving a fresh cut to a quill pen.

Pennsylvania Rifle –  Developed by the German and Dutch immigrants to the American colonies, by 1740 was a rifled-barreled blackpowder longarm of exceptional accuracy (the distinctive angled butt appearing in the muskets after 1790).

Pepperbox –     The nickname for the multibarrel percussion pistols in which a very heavy cylinder sported many complete barrel openings, each with its own percussion nipple. Technically not really a revolver, for the entire barrel assembly would have to be rotated by hand for each shot. Made by several manufacturers during the 1830’s, none had good hammer action and the thick multibarrel cylinder made the entire gun very heavy and cumbersome. Pepperboxes were replaced almost overnight by the lighter revolving multi-chamber single-barrel system pistols, the true revolvers, of the late 1840’s.

Percussion Lock –           Firing system for longarms and pistols in which a percussion cap is struck by the hammer, sending sparks that in turn sets off the main powder charge. In common use from 1820 to 1880.

Pike –    A long shaft with a pointed end, the primary weapon of the infantry until the development of the bayonet. Pikes are a form of spear, but are not used for throwing and only rarely for thrusting. Pikes range in size from eight to twenty feet in length, and were used to form a bristle hedge to hold back an attack or to advance and take ground on the battlefield.
       Since the bulk of most armies were composed of minimally trained, part-time warriors, pikes were a cheap weapon to produce and simple to train a soldier in the basic uses.
       As opposed to the more manageable spear or halberd, the pike has no use as an individual weapon, but when tightly massed in a formed infantry line or square, it is the best defense against a charge of cavalry, and an excellent tool for allowing a group of soldiers to take and control territory.

Pillow Sword –   During the 18th century, several smallsword hilt styles were relatively flat and two dimensional, eliminating the dish or cup hand protection found in most other civilian swords.  They have something of the look of a very refined, sleek broadsword. In the 19th century these pieces collectively picked up the name pillow swords. The story goes that these were weapons that were laid by the bedside, allowing a gentleman to have instant availability to a sword for self defense. I have a couple of problems with that etymology. First, it is always suspect when a term pops up a century after the item was in use, and the term is used primarily by collectors. Secondly, these swords make very poor self-defense weapons. The very thin blades and absent hand protection indicates an item of dress rather than use, a vanity piece rather than a dueling sword.
     For what it’s worth, here is my guess as to the origin of the name: Since the look of these is meant to mimic the broadsword, I can imagine that in the Latin countries it might have been called an espada armada (sword of war), at least to describe it to a potential antique buyer. These pieces were often displayed on long velvet pads, a pillow, if you will. In Spanish, the word for pillow is almuada, and to English ears these two words can sound very similar. I can see the terms armada and almuada getting confused in just a few generations

Pilum –  The special spear of the Roman soldier with a short wooden shaft and then a long thin neck of iron topped with the spear head. This was a thrown spear, rather than a close-in thrusting spear.
       One of the problems in using throwing spears is that the enemy can throw them back at you. The Roman pilum eliminated this drawback. If the pilum hit and stuck onto an enemy shield, the long neck would prevent the enemy from simply hacking off the shaft, thus leaving the shield too heavy and cumbersome for use. If the spear was deflected or missed entirely and struck the ground, the long neck would bend, making it useless for the enemy to throw back. After the battle, the Romans could recover the spears and hammer them straight again for future use.

Pinfire – An unusual type of cartridge ammunition of the late 1800’s. Each cartridge had a small pin sticking out near the primer. The hammer would drive the pin into the primer, igniting the cartridge.  Also, a gun designed in this way. The guns themselves were reliable enough, but the cartridges had to be handled with great care so as not to distort the pin, and the failure rate was high.

Pistol –  Any firearm small enough to be held and fired with one hand. All revolvers are also pistols.

Polearm –          A cutting or clubbing weapon with a metal head and a shaft of three feet or longer. Usually does not refer to a spear or pike. The “pole” part of the word is not a reference to the shaft, but is an Old English word meaning “head”. Polearms fade from the battlefield at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

Plug Bayonet –  A seventeenth century double-edged dagger with a cross hilt and a smooth tapered handle. Jamming the handle into the barrel of the Spanish musket would quickly convert the firearm to a practical pike, thus providing a temporary but effective defensive weapon against a cavalry charge. Plug bayonets lasted only a few decades until supplanted by the invention of the socket bayonet, which cleared the barrel and allowed the musket to fire.

Pommel –          The “top end” of the sword, the counterweight at the end of the hilt. Some swords do without any pommel at all, and on some of the larger broadswords it may reach a weight of nearly a pound and a half. The term is French, meaning “little apple”.

Poniard –           A dagger with a very thin stabbing blade and almost no cutting edge. A forerunner to the stiletto, the poniard was not only popular as a trim self defense weapon, but also found good use on the medieval battlefield. For a final killing move, the poniard blade can thrust in between the scales of armor and even force open the links in chain mail.
       Although poniard bladed daggers were not used historically for rapier and dagger fights, nowadays they are very commonly used on stage. When the theatrical sword is epee-bladed, a regular thick dagger blade can cut right through the sword, so the poniard offers a much better match.

Primer – From the Spanish meaning “first”, the initial combustible material which sets off the powder charge in a cartridge. Primers do not cause an explosion, but only a brief spark.

Pugio – From the Latin root word for fist, the pugio was a short broad-bladed dagger meant for close-in killing thrusts.

Pump-Action –   For rifles and shotguns, the working mechanism which ejects the spent round and loads in the next with each pull and push of an underhanging in-line sliding lever.

Punch Dagger –  Any short straight bladed knife with a handle constructed in such a way so that the blade is in line with a punching closed fist. Punch dagger handles are always set perpendicular to the blade. Western punch daggers usually have a single shaft connecting the blade to the center of the handle, the shaft protruding between the fingers of the closed fist. Those of India (called katars) connect the blade to both ends of the handle, traveling around the fist. Either way, the benefit is that a stab can be delivered without having to bend the wrist as one would need to on a regular knife. The driving force created by punching allows the blade to pierce through even chain mail and armor.

Quarrel –            another name for the crossbow bolt (arrow).

Quarterstaff –    A long, straight stick of wood, usually five to eight feet in length. A weapon of the lower class. At various times and countries, steel weaponry was outlawed for all but the nobility, so fighting styles developed from simple farm implements and even a common walking stick.
       Why it is called the quarterstaff is not known. Some say it is because the staff is held “at the quarters”, but that’s not really true since most of the time it is actually held at the thirds. Another theory is that it refers to a quartered length of the ash tree, but this would lead to too much variation in length. My own belief is that it refers not to the length but to the best width of the staff, about a quarter of a palm’s breath (for most people about one inch). This optimum width is mentioned throughout the world and throughout time wherever the staff is used as a fighting weapon.

Quillon –            The name for either arm of the hilt of the sword that forms a vaguely cross-shaped guard. Also refers to any dagger that has a guard similar to that of a broadsword.

Quiver – The case that holds the arrows, and sometimes also the bow, for an archer.
       Because of the various Robin Hood movies, the popular conception is that in Europe the quiver was slung over the shoulder and the arrows were drawn one by one by the right hand from behind the back, American Plains Indian style. But that is a Victorian era conceit, designed for sport archery. In medieval battles, the quiver was worn at the waist, and once an archer was in position the arrows were removed all at once in a bunch and stuck into the ground, allowing for much faster loading and firing.

Rabbit Pistol –   As far as I can find, this term is only used in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, and would seem to refer to a small caliber single-shot percussion pistol, which would be the most appropriate for shooting at small game such as rabbit. As such, the pistol would hardly be a valued piece, but a mere working tool used as an inefficient pest control device. These days we would call such a gun a “plinker”.

Rapier – This word is a tough one to define because it has gone through so many countries and traditions. This means that the script may call for a rapier, the director wants a rapier, the props master provides a rapier, and all three are talking about different weapons and all three are somewhat correct.
       Sometime around the mid-1500’s, a sword was developed in Spain that, compared to the broadsword, was light enough to actually be worn around town for extended lengths of time. This was done by simply making the blade much narrower, only about an inch wide. There were thin-bladed battlefield swords already (the “estoc”, or tuck), but this new sword was purely a single-hand weapon, designed to fight against an unarmored opponent. It could rest on the hip comfortably at an angle so as to allow easy movement while walking or sitting and engaged in daily activities. The Spanish referred to this sword as the “espada ropera”, literally “dress sword”, as opposed to the regular “espada” or sword for war, the broadsword. The term “ropera” went through France untranslated but given a linguistic twist as “ropierre”, and then in England corrupted again into “rapier”, pronounced ray-peer’. I include all of this because so many Americans try to give this word a French pronunciation [rah-pee-ay’, or some such] where one is not called for.
       Something interesting about the rapier became evident almost immediately to the Spanish. The sword is light enough to simply hold for quite a while, pointed with an outstretched arm at someone’s face to hold them off. If your opponent is holding a heavy broadsword, he is going to have to lift up his arm even higher in order to get momentum to deliver a cutting blow. All you have to do is step forward in that instant and you have run your partner through. All of a sudden, massive arm strength is no longer needed to win in a sword fight, which previously was a fearsome bashing contest. With only the right hand needed to wield the rapier, the left hand is free to punch or grab the opponent, or to use another weapon as a defensive tool. Anything could be used – a cloak, a club, a chain – but the most popular was a long-bladed dagger known by the French term “main gauche” (men-goesh) – literally “left hand”. Rapier and dagger fights became the way in which most disputes of honor or drunkenness were settled.
       The rapier in history only lasted a brief 140 years, when it was replaced by the smallsword of the late 1600’s. Initially sporting simple cross hilts, the height of its development was circa 1620, when the full cup and swept hilts to protect the hand reached their largest dimensions. The popular image of the rapier is the sword used in the Three Musketeers or Cyrano de Bergerac, with the full hand protection exemplified by the Spanish guards of the period. Many people believe that only this type of hilt is a rapier, when actually rapiers came in a huge variety of styles, lengths, and hilt sizes.
       The rapier was not a weapon of war. The use of a dueling weapon requires that you know who and where your opponent is, and that there won’t be another 12,000 people nearby all trying to kill you. In addition, a blade thin enough to be light is also thin enough to snap in half when hit by a heavy sword, and it certainly can do nothing against someone wearing even the most basic armor. The rapier was purely a civilian weapon, never used in battle. Unfortunately, in later years, after the extinction of the weapon itself, the term remained and was used incorrectly to describe any dueling and then any sporting weapon. Some people still use the term this way, thinking they are talking about the swords used in modern Olympic competition and sport fencing.
       Also, there are all of those theatre people who used the term to describe the only swords they have ever seen – those found in theatres. Many directors will ask for rapiers, when what they really want could be broadswords with blunted tips.
       Finally, one last use of the word: describing the blade but not the hilt. As I mentioned, the actual rapier blade was about an inch wide and up to four feet long – simply too heavy for most actors to wield safely. For that reason many fights are performed using a German blade called the schlaeger (shlay’-gger or shlah’-gger), a bashing blade as was the true rapier, but only 1/4 of an inch wide and 35 inches long, therefore much more manageable. But the schlaeger is not used as often as the even lighter epee, which also gets named rapier by many.

       There we have seven different uses for one term. So, when someone asks for a rapier, what does he want? …

•            the civilian European sword of between 1520 and 1660 ?
•            the Spanish Cup Hilt (but not the blade) of the early 1600’s ?
•            any light dueling sword ?
•            any sport fencing sword ?
•            any blunted sword ?
•            the 1” thick blade for stage combat or costume purposes ?
•            the 1/4” thick blade for stage combat purposes ?

       Be safe – ask the follow-up questions.

       For now, let’s go back to the historic rapier that Shakespeare wrote about. The rapier with which he was familiar had a handguard a little bit more ornate than that of a light broadsword, but still flat. The blade was approximately three feet long and an inch wide. I say approximately because there was little standardization in armaments of war in this period, and none whatsoever for civilian weapons. Blade lengths of 28” were rare, and three feet seemed to be most common, but many rapier blades were four feet in length and some even approached five feet. These monsters would literally drag behind the wearer and were considered inherently unfair, so much so that at one point the guard of London Bridge would stop entry of anyone entering the city with a sword of extended proportion. (The prospective entrant had a choice – leave the city, surrender the sword, or have the guard remove it from the scabbard, break it over his knee, and have it returned at a new, reduced length.)

Remington –      An American firearms manufacturer of a long and varied line of shotguns, rifles, pistols and ammunition.

Revolver –         A pistol which has a multi-shot revolving chamber, so that it can be fired in rapid succession before reloading. In England, the term can mean any pistol that can fire more than one shot.

Ricasso –          On certain swords, a portion of the guard extends beyond the quillon, allowing the first finger to hook over the quillon for a better grip while protected by the extra guard. The section of blade between the guard and the quillon is called the ricasso, and is sometimes a little thinner than the blade proper and is always left unsharpened.

Rifle –   A longarm with a rifled barrel [as opposed to a smoothbore], firing a bullet [not a ball]. The interior of a rifle barrel has grooves cut into the surface in a gentle spiral, which makes the bullet spin when fired for greater accuracy and distance. Rifling of barrels had been attempted since the early 1700’s, and made for excellent hunting weapons, but because of the difficulty in loading, they were not practical for wartime use until the mid-19th century and the development of the Minie bullet.

Rimfire –            Type of cartridge ammunition in which the firing pin of the gun must strike the edge of the primer so that ignition can occur.  Also, a gun designed in this way.

Rimless –          Said of ammunition in which the base of the cartridge is the same diameter as the case. Most ammunition has a base wider than the case, which keeps the cartridge from sliding too deeply into the chamber. Semi-automatic ammunition cannot have an exposed rim that would interfere with the loading mechanism, so rimless ammunition was designed for that use.

Rondel –            A dagger with a handguard made of a simple metal disk.

Round –            The individual fireable unit used in a firearm. Sometimes used synonymously with the terms bullet or cartridge.

Runka –  A polearm with a symmetrical head composed of a central flat blade and two smaller blades on either side coming out at about 45 degrees. Probably first inspired by the trident or pitchfork, it is also known as the septum and corseca.

Sabre – Here is another word that has a couple of possible meanings.
       Coming from the Arabic “say-fyr”, the sabre was originally the single handed curved blade of the Middle East. Although Europeans were certainly familiar with the weapon, it wasn’t until the early 1700’s that high quality steel construction had improved in the West to allow for its mass production there.
       The sabre was always a purely military weapon, and equally devastating when used from horseback or by an infantry soldier. Unlike the straight bladed broadsword, the sabre can inflict deep cuts even from off-placed blows, therefore requiring less training, and since the blade has only one striking edge, can be made much lighter than a broadsword of the same length.
       With time, European armies experimented with the severity of the blade curvature, and in many cases sabres were constructed again with straight blades. The curved blades are perfect for cutting at the enemy, but straight blades were specifically designed for cavalry use to run-down and impale foot soldiers.
       In the Olympic sport of sabre fencing, the blade is as narrow as a foil and has no cutting capability whatsoever. Thin, straight and whippy, the blade serves as a scoring device in a sport where both the tip and the edge can be used to strike at an opponent.

Saex (also Sax) – The single edged all-purpose dagger of several Germanic tribes of the Dark Ages, especially the Saxons of northern continental Europe and England. The blade length varied from 10 to 24 inches, with a distinctive off-centered tip that looks for all the world that the blade is broken.

Sam Brown –     You’d think that something named for its designer [British Army officer General Sir Samuel J. Browne] would have just one meaning. Unfortunately, it has two.

1.      A military belt combined with a sash, usually on the right shoulder, worn by officers and meant to better support the weight of a sword or pistol. [It is always fascinating to see police uniforms in which the sash attached to the belt at the hip opposite of where the gun is worn, thereby rendering the sash useless except as an interesting design choice.]
2.      In the USA, it can also refer to the modern police belt (no sash) that holds nearly all of the apparatus [gun, cuffs, flashlight, nightstick, radio, etc.] that the modern cop requires.

Samurai –          Specifically the fighting retainers of Japanese feudal lords, and, more generally, the warrior class of medieval Japan. It is sometimes used to refer to the swords used by the same. Although the sword [katana] was the most prized weapon of the samurai, he was expected to be proficient in combat with every battlefield weapon.

Sap –    A blackjack. The etymology of the word is unknown, although some have posited that it is short for “sapling”. [I rather doubt that, and am more inclined to believe that it came from another meaning of sap, which is to weaken or destroy by stealth.]

Saturday Night Special –            The term (first coined in 1968) became a common phrase during the 1970’s to describe extremely inexpensive handguns that had flooded the market, legally and illegally, during the prior decade. These zinc-alloy framed guns could be either semi-automatics or revolvers. They were generally of poor construction but could be purchased for less than $50, sometimes as low as $20. Saturday night specials were almost always either .22 caliber for revolvers or .25 caliber for semi-automatics. Because the frames were made of weak metals, none of them were .38 caliber, as the additional force from the .38 cartridge would have caused the frame to burst.
The perception that “Saturday Night Specials” (by whatever name) were commonly used in crimes, particularly on Saturday nights, was prevalent during a certain period in the United States, particularly from the mid-20th century through the 1980s. The diminished use of the term “Saturday Night Special” by the end of the decade reflected a combination of factors, including changes in perceptions of firearm-related crime, advancements in data collection and analysis, and shifts in public discourse surrounding firearms and gun control.

Sawed-Off –      An aftermarket modification of a rifle or, especially, a shotgun in which the barrel is shortened to about one foot in length. Often the butt of the gun is shortened as well to pistol-grip size. Also called “sawn-off”.

Scabbard –        The protective carrying holder for a sword or knife that completely covers the blade. Distinguished from a sheath in that the scabbard is made of hard material such as wood or brass and therefore retains its shape even when empty.

Scattergun –      Slang term for a shotgun.

Schiavonna –     The Italian version of the basket hilt sword, and likely the first of the genre, pre-dating the Scottish variety by a couple of centuries. The word is a Florentine term for the Slavic people who drifted into Italy in the 15th century.

Schlaeger –       Derived from the German word for blade, it is in fact a type of dueling sword blade.

Schmeisser –     This is actually an inaccurate name for a series of submachine guns used by German paratroopers during WWII. The specific model numbers include the MP-38, MP-39, MP-40, and the MP-41. Captured weapons were preferred by American G.I.’s over US submachine guns due to their higher quality. The Schmeisser company produced only limited numbers of these submachine guns, but the name became the common nickname for the entire genre.

Scimitar –  A single edged curved sword of Persia. A Western mispronunciation of the word shamshir, the scimitar was designed as a purely cutting, not thrusting weapon. To ease drawing the sword while at full gallop on horseback, the blade was often more curved than that of a standard sabre. The true scimitar has a blade of equal width throughout its length.
        But this is what you are thinking about, right? The thick wide blade with the even wider peaked back-edge is a Western fantasy.

Scourge –          A whip or flail specifically designed to break skin but not bones, as a punishment or for self-mutilation. A bullwhip makes a very poor scourge, as it is designed to merely produce a cracking noise. A cat-o’-nine-tails, on the other hand, is a perfect scourge.

Scramasax –      A single edge, short, straight sword/dagger of the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. Usually of less than two feet in length and having no handguard. Similar in design to the Saex dagger.

Semi-Auto –       A firing system for guns in which one shot is fired for each pull of the trigger without having to reload the gun. So why isn’t a revolver called semi-auto? Well it really should be, but the term has stuck for those pistols and rifles in which the bullets are automatically fed from a magazine. Not to be confused with automatic firearms.

Septum –           Another name for the Runka. A polearm.

Service pistol (or revolver)  –      Any handgun issued to military or law-enforcement personnel. Therefore there is no single look for a service pistol. It is whatever gun a particular agency issued in a particular year.

Shackles –         Any metal fastening that secures or restrains any part of the body, usually the ankles or wrists.

Sheath –            A close-fitting covering for a blade. Distinct from a scabbard in that a sheath is made of soft material and is relatively flexible.

Shell –   1. For certain rapiers, a type of cup guard whose shape is reminiscent of a scallop shell.

       2. A hollow tube to be filled or is already filled with explosive powder and some type of projectile. A hand grenade is a kind of shell, and any ammunition fired from a modern pistol, rifle, shotgun [all the way up to those giant naval battleship guns] is a shell.
       For modern ammunition, the shell is composed of four parts: bullet or shot, cartridge or casing, the explosive powder, and the igniting primer.

       3. Incorrectly, the term is now commonly used for the ejected brass casing or cartridge found on the ground after a semi-automatic gun is fired.

Shield – A large solid piece of stiff material used to defend the warrior against impact weapons. Although most people have the idea that shields should be made of steel (the better to clank with!), metal shields were pretty rare and used mainly by knights in tournament fighting against swords or lances only. Early shields were made of hardened leather stretched over a light wood frame, and later shields were of wood. Arrows fly right through thin steel shields, but get stuck in wood shields of even less than a half inch thick. A shield hangs on the arm, exceptions being the smaller buckler and the much larger pavis.

Shillelagh –        The simple and ancient club of Ireland, cut from the twisted limb of a blackthorn tree, most are just under two feet long. The best have a knot on the end for a heavier striking surface.

Shortsword –     Of course a sword with a short blade, but now used to describe specifically the ancient swords of the Bronze and Iron Ages, with blades of two feet in length or less. Can also refer to the many two edged swords of medieval Europe that were built for relatively untrained infantry, crossbowmen and archers. Not to be confused with the smallsword.

Shot –   most common usage is for the small lead pellets, fired from a shotgun, although through history could refer to any kind of projectile.

Shotgun –          A longarm with smoothbore barrel in which shot is fired instead of a single bullet. Because the shot spreads as it leaves the barrel, shotguns are used for hunting small game, especially birds in flight, or against humans when there may be multiple attackers or whenever a maximum amount of damage is required in one shot and the target is relatively close.
       The term “shotgun” actually precedes the invention of the gun itself. From 1775 it was used to describe any musket loaded with shot. By about 1850 some muskets were fitted with barrels better able to accommodate shot, and these should probably be considered to be the first true shotguns, although they were still muzzleloaders and could not break open.
       Shotguns can be of four styles depending on how they load: ancient muzzleloaders (from 1775), break-open (starting in the mid-1800s), pump-action (1893), and semi-auto (1948).

Side-By-Side –   A double-barreled shotgun in which the two barrels are set next to each other; as opposed to an over-and-under. Someone firing a side-by-side needs to slightly adjust their sighting from right to left between the two shots.

Side Sword –     A very modern term, used to describe rapier hilts with wide blades, often used in combat rather than civilian duels. The term was used rarely in the 16th century, and then only in Italy. But modern reenactors have enjoyed creating an invented fighting style to go with their invented term.

Sidearm –          A military weapon worn on the side at waist level, such as a sword, bayonet or pistol.

Silencer –          An apparatus, usually screwed onto the barrel of a gun, that can muffle part of the sound of gunshot. Silencers only work on real guns, where all of the blast is directed down the barrel; they cannot muffle any of the sound of a blank-fire gun.

Single Action –  Describes the working of the hammer for a pistol. On single action guns, the hammer must be pulled back manually with the thumb before the trigger is squeezed. As opposed to double action.
       Although single action takes longer than double action to fire, it does provide a benefit to the shooter. Once the hammer is pulled back, it takes very little muscular effort to depress the trigger, so the aim of the shooter tends to be more steady.

Skean Dhu (various spellings) –  A very small knife tucked into the stocking of the Scottish Highlander. Usually no more than a three inch blade and five inches overall.

Sling –   An open piece of leather connected to two strings. A rock is placed in the leather and the string ends are held in one hand. Using it is fairly simple: swing the sling overhead several times to build up speed and then let go of one of the strings, and the rock will travel a good distance with a lot of force. Although widely used in Biblical times, it had limited acceptance in most European battles even in the pre-medieval period. Occasionally seen now in street riots against police and lightly armored soldiers in the Middle East.

Small arm –       A firearm that can be held and operated in one hand. A pistol.
       This is another term that has changed with time. Originally meaning strictly the pistol, military usage by the twentieth century considered both pistols and rifles to be small arms, for they could be fired while held, as opposed to from a tripod. NATO currently defines small arm as a weapon firing nonexplosive rounds that can be carried by one or two persons or can be mounted on a “light” vehicle. Small arms apparently get larger with time.

Smallsword –     Name for the civilian sword of the 18th century. Smallswords were the direct descendants of the rapiers, but the emphasis is exclusively on thrusting rather than cutting, and use of the blade itself for parrying rather than relying on a second weapon in the left hand for defense. The smallsword blade was lighter and shorter than the rapier, and the hand protection was greatly reduced. Overall, the weapon was not superior to the rapier, but was designed as an upper-class accoutrement and dueling sword, rather than a practical self-defense weapon. Not to be confused with a courtsword or a shortsword.

Smith & Wesson –         An American firearms manufacturer of mostly revolvers. So varied has the output of this company been that there is no single look that is definitively “S & W”. [For some reason, playwrights so love the sound of having actors say “Smith & Wesson 38” that it is uttered in dozens of twentieth century plays, but the phrase is as descriptive as saying “rubber-tired Toyota”.]

Smoothbore –    Said of gun barrels in which the interior is smooth, without grooves, or in other words not rifled. Most guns were smoothbores before the mid 1850’s.

Snaphaunce –    An early flintlock firing system in which the flint strike plate and the flash pan cover are two separate pieces. (In a true flintlock, the strike plate and pan cover are one piece.)

Snub Nose –      Any revolver with a barrel length of less than three inches. For some reason, the term is not used for single shot nor semi-automatics. Snub-nosed revolvers are used for very short distance firing, personal protection, or when concealing the weapon is necessary.

Society Sword –            Similar to court swords, society swords are light presentation swords with decorated hilts and weak costume blades given to members or officers of such fraternal organizations such as the Knights of Columbus, the Masons, or the Ku Klux Klan. They may take many forms, but most are variations on smallsword hilt styles.

Solingen  –        A city in Germany that was a center of extremely high quality military sabre blades during the 18th and 19th centuries. Several manufactures in Solingen still produce superb sport-fighting blades to this day, especially the schlaeger. Blade forging for fighting swords has continued uninterrupted in the area since before the Norman conquest.

Spanish Musket –  The gun of the soldiers (Musketeers) of the 17th century. Difficult to load and dangerous to operate, it was heavy and inaccurate. But the matchlock firing mechanism it used made it more reliable than the crossbow in damp weather, so it quickly became the standard light infantry arm for all European armies. The nickname “Spanish” had to do with its purported country of invention, although there is no substantiation for that claim.

Spear –             A sharpened stick at least 2/3 the length of the person holding it. Most spears have a stone or metal tip, often much wider than the pole to which it is attached. The shape of the weapon is determined by its primary use; either thrust, thrown, or defensive placement.
       Spears can be as short as the four foot thrusting weapon of the later Zulus, or up to 20 feet tall as in the case of some European infantry defensive placement weapons, although spears that are more than ten feet tall are more correctly termed pikes.

Spadroon –       Late 18th and early 19th century term for certain swords worn by military officers. Spadroons were in every way modeled after the smallswords of the civilian upper class, and showing the same wide variation in hilt styles, but where fitted with slightly heavier and wider blades. They were always single edged, so as to at least give the appearance of being a useful weapon for war.

Springfield –      Every country has a central armory where the bulk of its military weapons are produced, and in the USA it is the Springfield Arsenal in Massachusetts. Going back for over 220 years, nearly every rifle used in American warfare has technically been a Springfield rifle, but the Model 1903 bolt-action has been most strongly associated with the name.

Spontoon –   A short partisan, usually less than 7 feet long, carried by infantry officers in the 1700’s.

Squib – A  low intensity explosive with electronic detonation; used for pyrotechnic special effects. Most commonly used in film to produce the effect of gunshots striking a wall or human. The explosive is preset on the set or underneath the costume of the actor and wired for detonation. It is then ignited on cue, most often remotely, by completing an electrical charge through the explosive compound.

Staff –   Varied meanings. It can be a walking stick, a shaft for a spear or polearm, or a long stick used as a weapon. See Quarterstaff.

Starter Pistol –   A pistol which was originally constructed to accept only blanks, used to start foot races. All modern starter pistols are block-barreled and cannot operate if loaded with real ammunition.

Stave –  Another term for staff.

Sten –         A “cheap and dirty” submachine gun manufactured by Sheppard and Turpin for ENgland during WWII. Easy to mass-produce, it was distributed to British soldiers and air-dropped to resistance fighters around the world. Although the manuals for the various models of this gun instruct the user to hold the gun

Stiletto –    A very thin bladed Italian dagger of the 16th to 18th centuries. It has the reputation of being an assassin’s weapon, although the extremely thin blade makes it a very poor single-thrust killing tool. With a very small puncture, even if made very deep, the victim dies rather slowly.
       In the twentieth century, the term has also been used, incorrectly, for thin bladed folding knifes and for switchblade knives with blade lengths of five to eight inches.

Stock – The wood on a longarm. Most rifles and muskets have stocks made of one piece of wood running the length of the gun, although many rifles and almost all shotguns have a break in the center of the wood where the firing mechanism resides. In such guns, the wood under the barrel is referred to as the foregrip or forestock, and the part which goes against the shoulder is called the butt stock or simply the butt. In modern guns, the stock is now often made of plastic, but the term remains the same.

Striker – In firearms, the part that drives the firing pin. Sometimes used to refer to the hammer, but hammers pivot in an arc, whereas strikers move in a linear path.

Submachine Gun – An automatic rifle that can be carried and operated by one person. Usually made to fire pistol or light rifle ammunition instead of heavier rifle or machine gun rounds. All assault rifles are submachine guns.

Swept Hilt –       Refers to a rapier guard style built of strands of steel in an openwork style. Although similar to the cage hilt,  the swept hilt is usually asymmetrical and designed to trap the opponent’s blade in addition to protecting the hand.

Swiss Dagger –   A shortened version of the baselard sword, with a wide twelve inch blade. During the 16th century it was popular throughout Europe. The shape was later resurrected as a sidearm dagger in Nazi Germany. Sometimes now also called the Holbein dagger, as so many of that painter’s 16th century portraits featured the subject wearing this style of dagger.
       Unfortunately, a very different knife, also, very popular among the Elizabethan English nobility, is often incorrectly called a Swiss dagger in many antique listings and art history books. These dress poniards had thin stiletto blades and narrow curved quillons.

Switchblade –      Any knife with a spring-loaded blade hidden completely in the handle, and can be opened with one hand by pushing a release button. Switchblades are either swing-out [the blade pivots at one end of the handle and swings around to the locked position] or pop-up [the blade shoots straight out of the handle]. All switchblade knives are illegal for purchase or use in the United States. Not the same as a gravity-action or drop-action knife.
       Switchblades were designed for covert use and were often carried by pilots and paratroopers in the 1940’s in case they had to cut themselves out of a tangled parachute. They also became something of a cult weapon among the demimonde in Europe and a favorite with youth gangs in the 1950’s in the USA. When the general population began to clamor for their political representatives to “do something” about the threat of gangs, laws were passed in the 60’s and 70’s making the availability of switchblades all but impossible. (A cynic might note that gangs simply moved from knives to guns, but that view is churlish. Obviously the laws were well thought out and have led to the complete elimination of gang violence.)

Sword – A bladed weapon for cutting and/or thrusting. But when is a weapon a sword and not a dagger or a spear or an axe? A good rule of thumb is that a sword has a blade at least four times as long as, and no wider than twice the width of, the handle. The length of the blade should be at least as long as a person’s forearm or it is really a dagger.

Tang –   The part of the blade which is not exposed, in other words hidden inside the handle.

Tanto –      In medieval Japan, the knife of the samurai. Although it was used on occasion for the ritual suicide known as sepuku [by self-disemboweling], the tanto was a fighting weapon, a gently curving single-edged dagger with a blade length of around 15 inches, and an excellent companion to the wakizashi [Japanese shortsword] for close-in fighting.
       A woman of the samurai class also wore a knife, but it was the smaller kwaiken, not the tanto.

Target – The round shield of the knight when fighting dismounted, often carried by his assistant, the squire. Opposing archers in the field would use the easily visible shields as a point of focus, leading to the term “target” as something to aim for. Also known as a “targe”.

Tec 9 –       Also known as the Intratec TEC-DC9, it has the features of a sub-machine gun as oppsed to an automatic pistol, first developed in 1985. Note that the magazine is forward of the trigger, making the gun more difficult to conceal. Clip sizes range from two to fifty rounds.

Thompson Submachine Gun –    Also known as the Tommy gun, the first successful fully automatic rifle that could be carried, loaded and operated by one person. Used famously by gangsters and G-men in the 1920’s and 30’s, the butt stock was often removed for easier handling. The gun could be further disassembled for packing in a small suitcase (or, yes, in a violin case) but then it could take some time for reassembly.
       Because the butt stock of this gun has a rather sharp down-angle towards the shoulder, and the recoil is so strong, the barrel of the gun jumps up with each shot. When firing in fully automatic mode, the bullets can easily start spraying up into the air. Even experienced shooters find that the pattern of fire veers strongly up and down as one tries to hang on to the rifle.
       Little remembered now is that this gun remained a valuable instrument in the arsenal of the US Army through WWII.

Toledo –            A city in Spain once known for building swords of superior quality. The term then came to mean any sword, and then any blade, made in that city.
       Though there was a time when the mark of  “Toledo “ on a blade was a guarantee of high craftsmanship, the region has not had a true sword industry for over a century and a half. The only swords from Spain now are cheap touristy wall hangings. Many of these weapons can be found in most theatre props cabinets, but should never be fought with.

Tomahawk –      In English, it means a small hatchet used in fighting. In the original languages of several east coast native communities, it literally means a cutting thing, a general tool for agriculture.

Tommy Gun –    Nickname for the Thompson submachine gun, especially when configured for civilian use with the round magazine. Also called the “Chicago Typewriter”, or inaccurately a “gat” (from Gatling gun).

Transitional Rapier –       This is a modern term for the rapier hilt styles seen from roughly 1640 to 1720, during which the full burly rapier gradually morphed into the sleek and elegant smallsword. Therefore, there is no single look for a transitional rapier.
       The first noticeable change was the shortening of the quillons until they extended no further than the cup, and then the cup itself slowly became smaller and flatter. The rest of the parts of the sword followed the shrinking process, with the blade being the last to follow. The one defining feature that differentiates between transitional rapiers and smallswords is that the rapier still offered a legitimate cutting threat, which would be completely lost in the smallsword.

Trench Spike / Trench Knife –     A short stabbing knife blade fixed onto a set of brass knuckles. These became popular amoung WWI soldiers, who, as the name implies, needed a close quarters weapon for the brutal hand-to-hand fighting of trench warfare, where rifles and long bayonets are hard to wield.

Trident –            A three-pronged fishing spear. Not used in war, but a popular weapon in the gladiatorial arena of ancient Rome.

Trigger Pull –     The amount of resistance that the finger must work against in order to pull the trigger and fire a gun.

Triple Action –    A fairly rare hammer action found on some of the early cartridge revolvers. Not only could the gun be operated in standard single and double action, but the hammer could be pulled back to the cocked single-action position without using the thumb. Instead, the trigger could be very carefully pulled back to almost the firing position, at which point the hammer could be heard to “cock” and lock at a now hair-trigger position. At that point it would take only a touch of the trigger to fire the gun.
        As it turned out, this was a very impractical way to draw the hammer back, it being much easier to simply use the thumb. Accidental shootings as operators tried to cock the hammer by using the trigger were frequent and nearly unavoidable.

Truncheon –       The short club used by police officers; the nightstick. Not used in warfare except as an occasional symbol of rank. The term goes back to the 9th century, and actually meant a length of stick from a broken spear shaft, used as an improvised weapon of desperation.

Tuck –   The English term for the estoc, the long two-handed strictly thrusting sword of the medieval battlefield. The term was sometimes used incorrectly to refer to any single hand sword.

Uzi –        The last name of the Israeli designer of the distinctive short and stocky assault rifle. The standard issue for Israeli armed forces from the late 1950’s several decades until replaced by US built M-16’s in the mid-1980’s, and then by rifles of Israeli manufacture similar to the US M-4 in the 2000’s

Wakizashi – The secondary, shorter, sword of the samurai warrior, with a blade length of about two feet. Although most Japanese warriors used the katana as a two-handed weapon, many used the katana in the right and the wakizashi in the left. Although a samurai might remove his katana once inside the confines of his home, the wakizashi was his twenty-four hour companion.

Walther –           A German firearms manufacturer most famously known for its semiautomatic pistol of WWII.

Waster –            Originally, any wooden cudgel used as a weapon. Now refers to wooden sword replicas designed for sword practice amoung live-action role players or re-creationists. Although a fine tool for training warriors, they are horrible for stage combat training. The balance and weight of the wood leads to very heavy strikes, lack of control, and poor stage combat technique.

Webley –           A British firearms manufacturer best known for its WWI era military revolvers.

Wheel gun –       A 20th century slang term for a revolver, the wheel in question being the revolving chamber.

Wheellock –          A firing mechanism for some pistols of the mid 1500’s and early 1600’s in which the powder charge was ignited by sparks flying away from a spring-loaded wheel rubbing against iron pyrite. It was created as a replacement for the dangerous matchlock system, but was costly to build and prone to constant disrepair, so was finally replaced by the flintlock system by the end of the century. [There is some legitimacy to the story that the first design of the wheellock came from Leonardo DaVinci.]

Whinyard –        An obscure [around 14th c.] term meaning shortsword.

Whip –               A short rod or stick with a long thin strap of flexible (usually braided) leather attached. A whip can only “crack” when the tip moves faster than the speed of sound.

Winchester –      An American firearms and ammunition manufacturer most famously known for its line of lever-action rifles of the late 1800’s.

Yataghan –        An interesting Turkish shortsword with a distinctive double curve. Popular with the Janissary units of the Ottoman empire during the late 18th century, the style was supposed to provide all of the cutting force of the curved sabre with the thrusting ability of the straight sword. It actually did neither well.
        The pattern was later incorporated into several bayonet styles, the most famous being that for the French Chassepot rifle of the late 19th century. It was an attempt to build a combination weapon, something that could be used as either a sword or bayonet. A curved blade is more useful for infantry units, but the same curve can get in the way of the bullet leaving the barrel when mounted as a standard bayonet. The double curve was an attempt to remedy that dilemma. Unfortunately, it proved to be a poor thrusting bayonet and less than satisfactory as a fighting sword.

Zip-Gun –          A homemade single-shot pistol. Usually very crudely made, using scraps found at building or demolition sites. Urban youths in the USA [and to much lesser extent in Ireland] made zip-guns from about the 1920’s until the late 1950’s. The firing pin was often a large nail, and the driving force was either a section of flat spring, a coiled spring or even a rubber band. Because neither the materials used nor the construction of the weapon could contain the explosive power of the gunshot, these guns as often as not exploded in the user’s hands.  Zip-guns all but disappeared in the mid-1960’s when very cheap revolvers (Saturday Night Specials) flooded the country.

            © 2009 Richard Pallaziol, Weapons of Choice ™- all rights reserved