cutlass

A cutlass is a short, broad sabre or slashing sword with a straight or slightly curved blade sharpened on the cutting edge and a hilt often featuring a solid cupped or basket-shaped guard. It was a former common naval weapon during the Age of Sail.

Key facts

Weapon.name: Cutlass
Weapon.image: MuseeMarine sabre p1000456 noBG.jpg
Weapon.image_size: 300
Weapon.type: Sword (short sabre, single-edged)
Weapon.origin: Europe
Weapon.is_bladed: Yes
Weapon.service: 17th, 18th, 19th, and early 20th century
Weapon.used_by: Sailors, pirates, and privateers
Weapon.length: (leadcutter cutlasses were up to in length).
Weapon.rate: 123 rounds/min
Weapon.blade_type: Single-edged
Weapon.hilt_type: Cup hilted guards, half-basket cup guards, and branch guards were commonly seen with cylindrical hilts and wire-wrapped hilts which are common and found on most cutlasses.

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Wikidata facts

Image: MuseeMarine-sabre-p1000456.jpg

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Commons category: Cutlasses

Sources (3)

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Article

7 sections

Contents

Etymology
History and use
Origin
History
Modern history
See also
References

==Etymology== The word "cutlass" developed from the 17th-century English use of coutelas, a 16th-century French word for a machete-like mid-length single-edged blade (the modern French for "knife", in general, is couteau; in 17th- and 18th-century English the word was often spelled "cuttoe"). The French word coutelas may be a convergent development from a Latin root, along with the Italian coltellaccio or cortelazo, meaning "large knife". In Italy, the cortelazo was a similar short, broad-bladed sabre popular during the 16th century. The root coltello, for "knife", derived ultimately from the Latin cultellus meaning "smaller knife", which is the common Latin root for both the Italian and French words.