Sunday, January 27, 2013

SWORD PLAY AND NOIR ON A MONDAY NIGHT


I wasn’t sure, exactly, what the word meant and was curious, so I went to the Internet in search of an answer. There I found the verb swashbuckle defined as “to engage in daring and romantic adventures with ostentatious bravado or flamboyance.” According to Merriam Webster, the word is a “back-formation” from the noun swashbuckler that came into use in around 1897. The Online Etymology Dictionary revealed more on the history of swashbuckler: 

1550’s “fighting, swaggering fighting man” (earlier simply swash, 1540s), from swash “fall of a blow”…plus buckler “shield.” The original sense seems to have been “one who makes menacing noises by striking his or an opponent’s shield.”

Fascinating. Well, it is if you love words as I do.