cold weapon

plural cold weapons

1. engineeringA weapon that does not use explosives or fire.

   There are perhaps more variations of the dao than there are of any other cold weapon.

   2009, Zhang Yun, “The History and Features of Dao”, in The Complete Taiji Dao: The Art of the Chinese Saber, Berkeley, Calif.: Blue Snake Books, North Atlantic Books, →ISBN, page 27

   3 more examples

   A fencing-room in which twenty or thirty couples of men are practising, is a fair illustration of a mélée with cold weapons.

   1863 January 17, “How to Make Soldiers”, in Charles Dickens, editor, All the Year Round. A Weekly Journal. [...] With which is Incorporated Household Words, volume VIII, number 195, London: […] C. Whiting, […], →OCLC, page 446, column 1

   The most effective weapons in the hands of the Caucasians was the sword, or as the Russians call it "the cold weapon" ["khalodnoye orúdiye," as opposed to firearms "agniovoye orúdiye"], the use of which, in hand-to-hand fight, was their special forte.

   1876, Hugo Stumm, “The Field of Operations and the Russian Resources of Operations in General”, in F. Henvey, P. Mosa, transl., The Russian Campaign against Khiva in 1873. […], part I, Calcutta, West Bengal: Foreign Department Press, →OCLC, section II (The Russian Bases of Operations in Central Asia), page 157

   Pistols, carbines and musketoons were the firearms of the cavalry; a sword or sabre the cold weapon.

   1890, Theodore Ayrault Dodge, “Army Organization and Tactics. Early Seventeenth to Early Eighteenth Century.”, in Gustavus Adolphus: A History of the Art of War from Its Revival after the Middle Ages to the End of the Spanish Succession War, […] (Great Captains), volume II, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], →OCLC, page 571

   Synonyms: white arm · Antonyms: firearm, gun, firearm, gat, gun, iron, piece