estramacon

French estramaçon

estramacon (plural estramacons)

1. A straight, heavy sword with two edges, used in the 16th and 17th centuries.
   • 1881, George Washington Wright Houghton, The Legend of St. Olaf's Kirk, page 41:

     Then to the pair, who speechless stood, he stretch'd
     A table-spread, bade each to hold an end,
     And with clear voice: "As we, the Church's arm,
     With this estramacon do smite in twain
     The texture of this fabric" (here he flash'd
     The blade between the two, cleaving the cloth), […]

2. A downward cutting blow with the edge of a sword or fencing weapon.

   Synonym: stramazoun

   • 1822, [Walter Scott], chapter XXXIV, in Peveril of the Peak. […], volume III, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC, page 281:

     I tripped a hasty morrice […] upon the dining table, now offering my sword [to the Duke of Buckingham], now recovering it, I made a blow at his nose—a sort of estramaçon—the dexterity of which consists in coming mighty near to the object you seem to aim at, yet not attaining it.

   • 1918, Adventure - Volume 17, Part 1, page 8:

     Dost think I could ride a horse and learn the tricks of Carricade and sly passata, Stramazon and bold stoccata, Maudritta to embrocata.

   • 1920, Bashford Dean, Helmets and Body Armor in Modern Warfare, page 40:

     In general we know that early armor of this type was often tried out by the chopping cut (estramaçon) of a sword, and that a similar test was used throughout Europe down to the seventeenth century.

   • 1935, Rafael Sabatini, Chivalry:

     Colombino used his left arm as a buckler, and before the ruffian could disentangle his blade from the Captain's cloak, a swift estramacon came to sever the sinews of his sword-arm.

   • 2008, Charles John Ffoulkes, The Armourer and His Craft, page 70:

     In speaking of head-pieces he states, on the same page, that the heavier kinds were proved with musket-shot, but the light varieties were only tested with "estramaçon" or sword-cut; and he adds that for armour to be good it must be beaten and worked cold and not hot.

• Sacramento