curtle-axe

plural curtle-axes

1. obsoleteObsolete form of cutlass.

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

   c. 1587–1588 (date written), [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

   2 more examples

   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, […]

   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

   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.

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