Hurlbat

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A hurlbat (or whirlbat, whorlbat) is a weapon of unclear original definition. Older reference works refer to it largely as a type of club, either held in the hand or thrown. Modern usage appears to refer to a type of throwing-axe.

Historical references

Thus, in the Middle Ages, the term referred to an aklys-type spiked club attached to a string, used for throwing and perhaps as target in swordsmanship training. After 1700, however, this meaning became quickly obscure, and eventually the "hurlbat" was imagined as a bludgeoning weapon that was swung, not thrown.


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References

  1. University of Michigan Middle English Dictionary [2022]. "hurle-bat(te". Retrieved 2022-09-01.
  2. 1 2 3 George Redmonds; Turi King; David Hey (25 August 2011). Surnames, DNA, and Family History. Oxford University Press. p. 33. ISBN   978-0-19-162036-2.
  3. Gabriele Stein (30 January 2014). Sir Thomas Elyot as Lexicographer. OUP Oxford. pp. 398–390. ISBN   978-0-19-150618-5.
  4. Thomas Blount (1707). Glossographia Anglicana Nova; Or, A Dictionary Interpreting Such Hard Words of Whatever Language, as are at Present Used in the English Tongue: With Their Etymologies, Definitions, Etc. ... D. Brown. p. 582.
  5. Samuel Johnson (1837). Miniature Edition of Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, with a Variety of Useful Tables and Lists. Stirling, Kenney. p. 116.
  6. John Craig (1854). A New Universal, Technological, Etymological, and Pronouncing Dictionary of the English Language. p. 954.
  7. der Streitkolben, Schwingkolben, Schlagkolben "the mace, swung club, cudgel"
  8. Johann Gottfried Flügel; Napoleon N W. Meissner (1856). Vollständiges englisch-deutsches und deutsch-englisches Wörterbuch, bearb. von J. G. Flügel (N. N. W. Meissner). pp. 680, 1614.
  9. The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia: The Century dictionary ... prepared under the superintendence of William Dwight Whitney ... rev. & enl. under the superintendence of Benjamin E. Smith. Century Company. 1911. pp. 2924–.