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Terminology

The origin of the name 'rapier' is Spanish. Its name is a "derisive" description of the Spanish term ropera. The Spanish term refers to a sword used with clothes (espada ropera, ' dress sword '), due to it being used as an accessory for clothing, usually for fashion and as a self-defense weapon. The English term "rapier" comes from the French rapière and appears both in English and German, near-simultaneously, in the mid-16th century, for a light, long, pointed two-edged sword. It is a loan from Middle French espee rapiere, first recorded in 1474, a nickname meaning ' grater '.

The 16th-century German rappier described what was considered a foreign weapon, imported from Spain, Italy, and France. Du Cange in his Middle Latin dictionary cites a form Rapperia from a Latin text of 1511. He envisages a derivation from Greek ραπίζειν (rapízein) 'to strike'. Adelung in his 1798 dictionary records a double meaning for the German verb rappieren: ' to fence with rapiers ' on one hand, and ' to rasp, grate (specifically of tobacco leaves) ' on the other.

The terms used by the Spanish, Italian and French masters during the heyday of this weapon were simply the equivalent of "sword", i.e. espada, spada and épée (espée). When it was necessary to specify the type of sword the Spanish used espada ropera. The name was registered for the first time in las Coplas de la panadera, by Juan de Mena, written between 1445 and 1450 approximately.

Clements (1997) categorizes thrusting swords with poor cutting abilities as rapiers, and swords with both good thrusting and cutting abilities as cut-and-thrust swords.

The term "rapier" is also applied by archaeologists to an unrelated type of Bronze Age sword.