1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rapier

RAPIER, the name given to two distinct types of sword. Originally the “rapier” (Fr. rapiére) was a long two-edged and pointed weapon with a wide cup hilt, used together with the dagger in fencing and duelling chiefly as a thrusting weapon, the cut taking a secondary position. This was the typical duelling sword of the 16th and 17th centuries. In the 18th century the “small-sword” took its place; this was a pointed weapon only, the “cut” having entirely dropped out, and the dagger being discarded. The Word rapier is of doubtful origin. Du Cange (Glossarium, s.v. “Rapparia”) quotes an example of the word used as an adjective to qualify espée as early as 1474, and gives as a conjectural derivation Gr. ῥαπίξειν=Lat. caedere, to cut. Skeat (Etym. Dict., 1910) follows the suggestion of Diez that rapiére is from raspiére, a rasper or poker, and was a name given in contempt by the old cut-and-thrust fencers to the new weapon. Spanish has raspadera, a raker, and there are several 16th and 17th century quotations alluding to the contempt with which the rapier was greeted, and to its Spanish origin (see and ).