swordsmanship
Sign in to saveAlso known as swordplay
thumb|upright=1.35|Depiction of Chinese swordsman wielding a single-edged sword, from the Dan Dao Fa Xuan, c. 1626
Wikidata facts
Show 1 more fact
- Commons category
- Fencing
via Wikidata · CC0
~25 min read
Article
29 sectionsContents
- Europe
- Classical history
- Post-classical history
- Modern history
- Renaissance
- Development into a sport
- Historical fencing
- Classical fencing
- Africa
- North Africa
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Asia
- East Asia
- Chinese
- Japanese
- Korean
- Southeast Asia
- Filipino
- South Asia
- Indian
- Middle East
- Persian and Hebrew
- Assyrian and Hittite
- Arabia and the Levant
- Ottoman
- See also
- References
- Further reading
- External links
thumb|upright=1.35|Depiction of Chinese swordsman wielding a single-edged sword, from the Dan Dao Fa Xuan, c. 1626
Swordsmanship or sword fighting refers to the skills and techniques used in combat and training with any type of sword. The term is modern, and as such was mainly used to refer to smallsword fencing, but by extension it can also be applied to any martial art involving the use of a sword. The formation of the English word "swordsman" is parallel to the Latin word gladiator, a term for the professional fighters who fought against each other and a variety of other foes for the entertainment of spectators in the Roman Empire. The word gladiator itself comes from the Latin word gladius, which is a type of sword.