{"id":23813,"date":"2024-12-19T13:54:31","date_gmt":"2024-12-19T13:54:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=23813"},"modified":"2024-12-19T13:54:31","modified_gmt":"2024-12-19T13:54:31","slug":"swords-spades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=23813","title":{"rendered":"Swords &#038; Spades"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What links the word <strong>epee<\/strong> (a type of sword) with the word <strong>spade<\/strong>? Let&#8217;s find out.<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/carolina_fencing\/6298480477\/in\/photolist-aAzmNZ-xE1Fu-aAzjG6-aABWt1-xE1Fm-aABmXA-aAz8BZ-aAz1Sg-aAA2fB-NnzCg-PTYAY5-aAyJdn-cQ64Uj-2h2x3ma-aAzhba-xE1yJ-aAyQ7R-aABQC1-aAzHux-cQ7gyy-xE1D6-xE1B8-7FjS5E-ajAygs-2h9bhrW-5FrskK-7L4dXY-cQ66Ky-cNG6F9-msdrfJ-PTYBNm-eiEZoe-Q4Bvy3-cQ68wE-6K2qQ6-Nbdv64-5JQsRF-SfqQM1-nWcnKW-rSnzV2-793GsV-G2Z8eL-c9e9Sh-NonFhF-nZ9jjh-pQrN9Q-L9ne3g-7KZgor-Cc1uKY-f3WLm9\" title=\"Tarheel Cup Epee Team Event 2011\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/6092\/6298480477_ecd9dfa2ca_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"504\" alt=\"Tarheel Cup Epee Team Event 2011\"\/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>An <strong>epee \/ \u00e9p\u00e9e<\/strong> is a sharp-pointed duelling sword with a bell-shaped guard, used (with the end blunted) in sport fencing (pictured above).<\/p>\n<p>The word comes from French <strong>\u00e9p\u00e9e<\/strong> (sword, glaive), from Middle French <em>espee<\/em> (sword), from Old French <em>espee<\/em> (sword), from Latin <em>spatha<\/em> (spatula, spattle, a long two-edged, straight sword typically carried by Roman cavalry officers, batten, a kind of tree), from Ancient Greek <em>\u03c3\u03c0\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7<\/em> (sp\u00e1th\u0113 &#8211; any broad blade, of wood or metal), from Proto-Hellenic <em>*sp\u00e1t\u02b0\u0101<\/em> (blade), from Proto-Indo-European <em>*sph\u2082-d\u02b0h\u2081-\u00e9h\u2082<\/em>, from <em>*(s)peh\u2082-<\/em> (to draw) + <em>*d\u02b0eh\u2081-<\/em> (to do, put) +  <em>*-eh\u2082<\/em> (a feminine ending) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/epee#English\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>The Proto-Germanic word <em>spad\u00f4<\/em> (spade) comes from the same PIE roots, and from that we get words like <strong>spade<\/strong> in English, <strong>spade<\/strong> (spade) in Dutch, <strong>Spaten<\/strong> (spade, idiot) in German, <strong>spade<\/strong> (shovel, spade) in Swedish, and <strong>spa\u00f0i<\/strong> (a small shovel, spade, paddle, racket) in Icelandic [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/underwhelm#English\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>The Greek word <strong>\u03c3\u03c0\u03b1\u03b8\u03af<\/strong> (sword, club [in cards]) comes from the same Ancient Greek root, as does the Bulgarian word <strong>\u0441\u043f\u0430\u0442\u0438\u044f<\/strong> (spat\u00edja &#8211; suit of clubs), which was borrowed from Greek [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/%CF%83%CF%80%CE%B1%CE%B8%CE%AF#Greek\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Other words from the same Latin root (<em>spatha<\/em>) include <strong>spatula<\/strong> in English, <strong>\u00e9paule<\/strong> (shoulder) and <strong>spatule<\/strong> (spatula, spoonbill) in French, <strong>spada<\/strong> (sword, epee) in Italian, <strong>espasa<\/strong> (sword, epee) in Catalan, <strong>espada<\/strong> (sword, epee) and <strong>espalda<\/strong> (back, backstroke) in Spanish, and <strong>ezpata<\/strong> (sword) in Basque. The words for sword all refer to the suit of clubs in cards in the plural [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic\/hwalb%C4%85\">source<\/a>]. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.japanesepod101.com\/member\/go.php?r=759259&amp;i=b0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/images\/banners\/banner_japanesepod.jpg\" alt=\"The Fastest Way to Learn Japanese Guaranteed with JapanesePod101.com\" width=\"630\" height=\"83\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What links the word epee (a type of sword) with the word spade? Let&#8217;s find out. An epee \/ \u00e9p\u00e9e is a sharp-pointed duelling sword with a bell-shaped guard, used (with the end blunted) in sport fencing (pictured above). The word comes from French \u00e9p\u00e9e (sword, glaive), from Middle French espee (sword), from Old French [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,89,93,94,102,104,107,111,116,118,124,10,302,27,34,44,301,45,64,67,78],"tags":[323,324,158,138,281,325,322,163],"class_list":["post-23813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ancient-greek-","category-basque","category-bulgarian","category-catalan","category-dutch","category-english","category-etymology","category-french","category-german","category-greek","category-icelandic","category-language","category-late-latin","category-middle-french","category-old-french","category-proto-germanic","category-proto-hellenic","category-proto-indo-european","category-spanish","category-swedish","category-words-and-phrases","tag-epee","tag-epee-2","tag-etymology","tag-language","tag-omniglot","tag-spade","tag-sword","tag-words"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23813"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23816,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23813\/revisions\/23816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}