curtle-axe

English

Noun

curtle-axe (plural curtle-axes)

1. Obsolete form of cutlass.
   • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act I, scene ii:

     Lie here ye weedes that I diſdaine to weare,
     This compleat armor, and this curtle-axe
     Are adiuncts more beſeeming Tamburlaine.

   • c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii], page [189], column 2, lines 564–568:

     That I did ſuite me all points like a man,
     A gallant curtelax vpon my thigh,
     A bore‑ſpeare in my hand, and in my heart
     Lye there what hidden womans feare there will,
     Weele haue a ſwaſhing and a marſhall outſide, […]

   • 1983, Gene Wolfe, chapter XXVIII, in The Citadel of the Autarch (The Book of the New Sun; 4), New York: Timescape, →ISBN, page 232:

     Though it was preposterous to suppose these carrion-gorged predators would molest us, my guards doubled their sentries; those who slept did so in their corslets, with curtelaxes in their hands.