The word—a word which, strange to say, has no equivalent in French—is the Scandinavian Svärd (Icel. Sverð); the Danish Sværd; the Anglo-Saxon Sweord and Suerd; the Old German Svert, now Schwert, and the Old English and Scotch Swerd. The westward drift of the Egyptian Sf, Sefi, Sayf, Sfet, and Emsetf, gave Europe its generic term for the weapon.[427] The poetical is ‘brand’ or ‘bronde,’ from its brightness or burning; another name is ‘laufi,’ ‘laf,’ or ‘glaive,’ derived through French from the Latin _gladius_. Of especial modern forms there are the Espadon, the Flamberg, Flammberg, or Flamberge,[428] the Stoccado, and the Braquemart; the Rapier and the Claymore, the Skeyne and Tuck, the small-Sword and the fencing-foil, beside other varieties which will occur in the course of the following pages. ‘Sword’ includes ‘Sabre,’ which may also derive from the Egyptian through the Assyrian Sibirru and Akkadian Sibir, also written Sapara; our ‘Sabre’ is the Arabic Sayf with the Scandinavian terminative _r_ (Sayf-r). Ménage would derive Sabre from the Armoric Sabrenn: Littré has the Spanish Sable, the Italian Sciabola, Sciabla, and in Venice Sabala, from the German Sable or Säbel, which again identifies with other languages, as the Serb Sablja and the Hungarian Száblya. The chief modern varieties of the curved blade are the Broadsword, the Backsword, the Hanger, and the Cutlass, the Scymitar and Düsack, the Yataghan and the Flissa. These several modifications will be considered in the order of their invention. Lastly the Egyptian ‘Sfet’ originated through Keltic the word Spata or Spatha[429] (Spatarius = a Swordsman) conserved to the present day in the neo-Latin names of the straight foining weapon—espada, espé, espée, épée. Physically considered, the Sword is a metal blade intended for cutting, thrusting, or cut-and-thrust (_fil et pointe_). It is usually, but not always, composed of two parts. The first and principal is the blade proper (_la lame_, _la lama_, _die Klinge_). Its cutting surface is called the edge (_le fil_, _il filo_, _die Schärfe_),[430] and its thrusting end is the point (_la pointe_, _la punta_, _die Spitze_ or _der Ort_, the latter mostly opposed to the _Mund_ or sheath-mouth). The second part, which adapts the weapon for readier use, is the hilt, hilts or heft (_la manche_, _la manica_, _die Hilse_ or _das Heft_), whose several sections form a complicated and a prodigiously varied whole. The grip is the outer case of the tang, _alias_ the tongue (_la soie_, _la spina_, or _il codolo_; _der Stoss_, _die Angel_, _die Griffzunge_ or _der Dorn_), the thin spike which projects from the shoulders or thickening of the blade (_le talon_ or _l’épaulement_, _il talone_, _der Ansatz_ or _die Schulter_) at the end opposed to the point. Sometimes there are two short teeth or projections from the angles of the shoulders, and these are called ‘the ears’ in English, in German, and in the neo-Latin tongues.