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The term blade geometry refers to the physical properties of a sword blade: cross-section (or grind) and taper.
Blade geometry is a crucial aspect of knife design, influencing both the performance and usability of cutting tools.
The cross-section of a blade is the primary way of determining its function and place in history.
Early Viking and medieval European blades tended to have a lenticular cross-section. This type of design lacks a strong central ridge in the middle of the blade. The flexibility these blades have illustrates the purpose that they served, as primarily cutting weapons, that could also be used with the thrust.
With the improvement in the defensive capabilities of armor in the High and Late Middle Ages, the cross-section of the sword blade adapted to suit the needs of warriors. Swords began to favour rigidity over flexibility as more rigid blades allowed for the stronger thrusts that were used to pierce armour. These blades were made with a diamond cross-section, which could be more or less acute, depending on the purpose of the blade. Weapons such as the Estoc, for example, would have little to no cutting edge, but they would be very rigid and strong on the thrust. This is opposed by the Longsword which was usually a multi-purpose weapon used for both thrusting and cutting.
The diamond cross-section could also be hollow ground for greater edge sharpness and thrust efficiency, while retaining strong central ridges.
There are two types of physical blade taper: distal and profile.
Distal tapering refers to a blade's cross-section thinning from its base to its tip. This is used to create the handling characteristics of individual blades and the amount of distal taper varies depending upon the intended purpose of the blade. Many modern replica blades are not made with any distal taper, resulting in a blade that, when wielded, will feel unresponsive and heavy.
Profile taper refers to narrowing upon the edges of the flat of the blade. Blades with a more gradual taper are meant for cutting, whereas blades with an acute taper are usually meant for thrusting.
A knife is a tool or weapon with a cutting edge or blade, usually attached to a handle or hilt. One of the earliest tools used by humanity, knives appeared at least 2.5 million years ago, as evidenced by the Oldowan tools. Originally made of wood, bone, and stone, over the centuries, in step with improvements in both metallurgy and manufacturing, knife blades have been made from copper, bronze, iron, steel, ceramic, and titanium. Most modern knives have either fixed or folding blades; blade patterns and styles vary by maker and country of origin.
A sword is an edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter blade with a pointed tip. A slashing sword is more likely to be curved and to have a sharpened cutting edge on one or both sides of the blade. Many swords are designed for both thrusting and slashing. The precise definition of a sword varies by historical epoch and geographic region.
A longsword is a type of European sword characterized as having a cruciform hilt with a grip for primarily two-handed use, a straight double-edged blade of around 80 to 110 cm, and weighing approximately 2 to 3 kg.
A chisel is a wedged hand tool with a characteristically shaped cutting edge on the end of its blade, for carving or cutting a hard material. The tool can be used by hand, struck with a mallet, or applied with mechanical power. The handle and blade of some types of chisel are made of metal or wood with a sharp edge in it.
The jian is a double-edged straight sword used during the last 2,500 years in China. The first Chinese sources that mention the jian date to the 7th century BCE, during the Spring and Autumn period; one of the earliest specimens being the Sword of Goujian. Historical one-handed versions have blades varying from 45 to 80 centimeters in length. The weight of an average sword of 70-centimetre (28-inch) blade-length would be in a range of approximately 700 to 900 grams. There are also larger two-handed versions used for training by many styles of Chinese martial arts.
The small sword or smallsword is a light one-handed sword designed for thrusting which evolved out of the longer and heavier rapier of the late Renaissance. The height of the small sword's popularity was during the 18th century, when any civilian or soldier with pretensions to gentlemanly status would have worn a small sword daily.
The French estoc is a type of sword, also called a tuck in English, in use from the 14th to the 17th century. It is characterized by a cruciform hilt with a grip for two-handed use and a straight, edgeless, but sharply pointed blade around 36 to 52 in in length. It is noted for its ability to pierce mail armor.
A tantō is a traditionally made Japanese knife that were worn by the samurai class of feudal Japan. The tantō dates to the Heian period, when it was mainly used as a weapon but evolved in design over the years to become more ornate. Tantō were used in traditional martial arts and in the seppuku suicide ritual. The term has seen a resurgence in the West since the 1980s as referring to a point style of modern tactical knives, designed for piercing or stabbing, though the style isn't present on any traditional tantō.
A blade is the sharp, cutting portion of a tool, weapon, or machine, specifically designed to puncture, chop, slice, or scrape surfaces or materials. Blades are typically made from materials that are harder than those they are intended to cut. This includes early examples made from flaked stones like flint or obsidian, evolving through the ages into metal forms like copper, bronze, and iron, and culminating in modern versions made from steel or ceramics. Serving as one of humanity's oldest tools, blades continue to have wide-ranging applications, including in combat, cooking, and various other everyday and specialized tasks.
A blade's grind is its cross-sectional shape in a plane normal to the edge. Grind differs from blade profile, which is the blade's cross-sectional shape in the plane containing the blade's edge and the centre contour of the blade's back. The grind of a blade should not be confused with the bevel forming the sharpened edge; it more usually describes the overall cross-section of the blade, not inclusive of the beveled cutting edge which is typically of a different, less acute angle as the bevel ground onto the blade to give it a cross-sectional shape. For example, the famous Buck 110 hunting knife has a "hollow ground" blade, with concave blade faces, but the cutting edge itself is a simple, flat-ground bevel of lesser angle. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to put a "hollow grind" onto the actual cutting edge of the blade itself, which is a very narrow and small bevel.
A fuller is a rounded or beveled longitudinal groove or slot along the flat side of a blade that serves to both lighten and stiffen the blade, when considering its reduced weight.
A kilij is a type of one-handed, single-edged and curved scimitar used by the Seljuk Empire, Timurid Empire, Mamluk Empire, Ottoman Empire, and other Turkic khanates of Eurasian steppes and Turkestan. These blades developed from earlier Turko-Mongol sabers that were in use in lands controlled or influenced by the Turkic peoples.
A stiletto is a specialized dagger with a long slender blade and needle-like point, primarily intended as a thrusting and stabbing weapon.
In martial arts, a waster is a practice weapon, usually a sword, and usually made out of wood, though nylon (plastic) wasters are also available. Nylon is safer than wood, due to it having an adequate amount of flex for thrusts to be generally safe, unlike wooden wasters. Even a steel feder has more flex than most wooden wasters. The use of wood or nylon instead of metal provides an economic option for initial weapons training and sparring, at some loss of genuine experience. A weighted waster may be used for a sort of strength training, theoretically making the movements of using an actual sword comparatively easier and quicker, though modern sports science shows that an athlete would most optimally train with an implement which is closest to the same weight, balance, and shape of the tool they will be using. Wasters as wooden practice weapons have been found in a variety of cultures over a number of centuries, including ancient China, Ireland, Iran, Scotland, Rome, Egypt, medieval and renaissance Europe, Japan, and into the modern era in Europe and the United States. Over the course of time, wasters took a variety of forms not necessarily influenced by chronological succession, ranging from simple sticks to clip-point dowels with leather basket hilts to careful replicas of real swords.
The Oakeshott typology is a way to define and catalogue the medieval sword based on physical form. It categorises the swords of the European Middle Ages into 13 main types, labelled X through XXII. The historian and illustrator Ewart Oakeshott introduced it in his 1960 treatise The Archaeology of Weapons: Arms and Armour from Prehistory to the Age of Chivalry.
The gothic hilted swords were a family of swords carried by officers and some NCOs of the British Army between 1822 and the present day. They were primarily infantry swords, although they were also regulation pattern for some other officers such as surgeons and staff officers. The term "Gothic hilt" is derived from a perceived similarity between the curved bars of the guard and the arches found in Gothic architecture. They were elegant aesthetically pleasing weapons, although they were considered by some to be mediocre fighting swords. The weapon and its variants had a very long service life.
A war scythe or military scythe is a form of polearm with a curving single-edged blade with the cutting edge on the concave side of the blade. Its blade bears a superficial resemblance to that of an agricultural scythe from which it is likely to have evolved, but the war scythe is otherwise unrelated to agricultural tools and is a purpose-built infantry melee weapon. The blade of a war scythe has regularly proportioned flats, a thickness comparable to that of a spear or sword blade, and slightly curves along its edge as it tapers to its point. This is different from farming scythes, which have very thin and irregularly curved blades, specialised for mowing grass and wheat only, unsuitable as blades for improvised spears or polearms.
The parrying dagger is a category of small handheld weapons from the European late Middle Ages and early Renaissance. These weapons were used as off-hand weapons in conjunction with a single-handed sword such as a rapier. As the name implies they were designed to parry, or defend, more effectively than a simple dagger form, typically incorporating a wider guard, and often some other defensive features to better protect the hand as well. They may also be used for attack if an opportunity arises. The general category includes two more specific types, the swordbreaker and trident dagger.
The 1897 pattern infantry officers’ sword is a straight-bladed, three-quarter basket-hilted sword that has been the regulation sword for officers of the line infantry of the British Army from 1897 to the present day.
The dahong palay, literally "rice leaf" in Tagalog, is a single-edged sword from the southern Tagalog provinces of the Philippines. It was originally used by farmers to clear thick grass growth. However, during the Philippine revolution of 1896, farmers from Batangas soon came to favor it for its "slashing and thrusting" feel.
