What does "sword" mean?

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

What is a synonym for "sword"?

Common synonyms include: steel, ax, battler, bayonet, belligerent, belted knight.

Sword

/[sɔɹd]/ name, noun, verb

name, noun, verb ·Common ·Middle school level

Definitions

Noun

1
A long bladed weapon with a grip and typically a pommel and crossguard (together forming a hilt), which is designed to cut, stab, slash and/or hack. countable
"He took out his sword and stabbed the man in the stomach."
2
a cutting or thrusting weapon that has a long metal blade and a hilt with a hand guard wordnet
3
A suit in certain playing card decks, particularly those used in Spain and Italy, or those used for divination.
4
A suit in certain playing card decks, particularly those used in Spain and Italy, or those used for divination.; A card of this suit.
5
One of the end bars by which the lay of a hand loom is suspended.

Verb

1
To stab or cut with a sword uncommon

Proper Noun

1
A surname.

Synonyms

All synonyms

steel ax battler bayonet belligerent belted knight

Example

More examples

"The police are really good at understanding "Someone stole my credit card and ran up a lot of charges." It's a lot harder to get them to buy into "Someone stole my magic sword.""

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English sword, swerd, from Old English sweord (“sword”), from Proto-West Germanic *swerd (“sword”), from Proto-Germanic *swerdą (“sword”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂w- (“sharp”). Cognates Cognate with North Frisian Swērt, Swiirt, swörd (“sword”), Saterland Frisian Swid, Swäid (“sword”), West Frisian swurd (“sword”), Dutch zwaard (“sword”), German Schwert (“sword”), Luxembourgish Schwäert (“sword”), Vilamovian świert (“sword”), Yiddish שווערד (shverd, “sword”), Danish sværd (“sword”), Faroese svørð (“sword”), Icelandic sverð (“sword”), Norn svird (“small longish object”), Norwegian Bokmål sverd (“sword”), Norwegian Nynorsk sverd, svørd (“sword”), Swedish svärd (“sword”); also Belarusian све́рдзел (svjérdzjel, “drill, drill bit”), Bulgarian свре́дел (svrédel, “drill, drill bit”), Czech svider (“drill bit”), Polish świder (“drill”), Russian сверло́ (sverló, “auger, bore, drill, drill bit”), Serbo-Croatian свр̏дло, svȑdlo (“auger”), Slovene sveder (“drill”), Ukrainian све́рдел (svérdel), све́рдло (svérdlo, “drill bit”).

Etymology 2

Various origins: * Metonymic occupational surname for a sword maker or armorer. * Reduced Anglicized form of Irish Ó Suaird (“descendant of Suard”), a Gaelicized form of Old Norse Sigvarðr.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.