Shashka
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A kind of guardless, lightly-curved sabre used in Russia.
"The question of form naturally concerns only the cutting weapon. Indeed, it is to a certain degree idle to discuss it at all, or at least of no great moment. To be convinced of this it is sufficient to compare the curvature of the yatagan with the less decided curvature of the shashka. Yet no Cossack would probably exchange his shashka for a yatagan, nor would any Turk give up his yatagan for a shashka, because that is all a matter of usage."
Example
More examples"The question of form naturally concerns only the cutting weapon. Indeed, it is to a certain degree idle to discuss it at all, or at least of no great moment. To be convinced of this it is sufficient to compare the curvature of the yatagan with the less decided curvature of the shashka. Yet no Cossack would probably exchange his shashka for a yatagan, nor would any Turk give up his yatagan for a shashka, because that is all a matter of usage."
Etymology
Borrowed from Russian шашка (šaška).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.