Sabred

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Attacked, wounded, or killed with a curved cavalry sword
2. Cut down or slashed by a heavy, single-edged blade used on horseback
3. Struck or slain with a curved military sword wielded in combat

Etymology: "Sabred" is simply the past tense and past participle of "sabre" used as a verb, so its story is really the story of the noun. The noun travelled a long way before reaching English. It entered French from German "Säbel", which had come from Polish "szabla", and that in turn traces back to Hungarian "szablya". The chain runs east to west, following the spread of curved cavalry swords across Central and Eastern Europe. The word has relatives across the continent: Danish "sabel", Russian "sablja", Serbo-Croatian "sablja" in Cyrillic, and the Sicilian "sciàbbula" all descend from the same source. Their shared sound shows how one name for a weapon could be passed from people to people along with the weapon itself.

Synonyms: slashed, cut, hacked