释义 |
sabre /ˈseɪbə /(US saber) noun1A heavy cavalry sword with a curved blade and a single cutting edge.Police sabers, cavalry sabers, European-type dress swords and other non-traditional blades are outside the scope of this discussion....- Further support of this theory is demonstrated in the Battle of Balaclava where the sabers of the cavalry had little or no effect through heavy clothing.
- The design of the sabre came from the cutting sword used by cavalries.
1.1 historical A cavalry soldier and horse.This I did to the best of my ability, by continually sending squadrons of about a thousand sabres out against them....- There remained French's Cavalry Division, with Hutton's Mounted Infantry, which could not have exceeded two thousand sabres and rifles.
- On February 27th Sheridan, with two divisions of cavalry, ten thousand sabers, moved up the Valley to Staunton.
2A light fencing sword with a tapering, typically curved blade.Milanese fencing master Giuseppe Radaelli, is generally credited with having developed the light sabre and its technique....- The immediate consequences to a duelist of wounds inflicted by thrusts or cuts from the rapier, dueling sabre or smallsword were unpredictable.
- In fact, the modern sabre as used in the sport of fencing today has absolutely no curve at all.
verb [with object] archaicCut down or wound with a sabre: the people were fired on and sabred...- The ex-soldier and radical politician William Cobbett observed that men would allow themselves to be ‘sabred into crow's meat’ in defence of a set of ragged colours which, were they for sale in a market, would fetch only a few pence.
- They sabered the officer who raised a white surrender flag, and bayoneted the wounded in a merciless slaughter.
- The regiments of Fleur-d'Orange, Millefleur, and Eau-de-Cologne covered themselves with glory: they sabred many thousands of the enemy's troops.
OriginLate 17th century: from French, alteration of obsolete sable, from German Sabel (local variant of Säbel), from Hungarian szablya. We think of curved swords as typically oriental, and the sabre is no exception. It probably comes from some unknown oriental language and passed into English by a long route that took it from Hungarian szablya via German and French. The extinct sabre-toothed tiger was first described in 1849. See also rattle
|