1680 T. Otway Orphan ii. 16 With my good Sabir drawn..I..Clove the Rebel to the Chine.

1697 London Gaz. No. 3291/1 The Chief Officers..came with their Sabres in their Hands.

1791 A. Radcliffe Romance of Forest II. xii. 166 Theodore..received himself the stroke of a sabre on his head.

1839 C. Darwin in R. Fitzroy & C. Darwin Narr. Surv. Voy. H.M.S. Adventure & Beagle III. iii. 46 My companions were well armed with pistols and sabres.

1889 A. C. Gunter That Frenchman! x. 119 Several pairs of foils and sabers.

1851 ‘L. Mariotti’ Italy in 1848 91 The Milanese were long since under the rule of the sabre.

1949 Western Folklore 8 112 To rattle the saber. To threaten military action.

1968 Listener 29 Aug. 259/2 The antique apparatus of Soviet diplomacy complete with rattling sabres and dutiful crowd noises from the Warsaw satellites, was mobilised in the hope of strengthening the Old Guard in the Czechoslovak party.

1976 Times 27 Jan. 1/3 At least a few Conservatives..doubt whether Mrs Thatcher was prudent to appear to rattle sabres and remind electors that women national leaders..have sometimes looked more warlike than men.

1978 J. A. Michener Chesapeake 704 Orators from many southern states came north to excite voters against the dangers of black franchise, and sabers rattled as ancient battles were recalled.

1880 J. M. Waite Lessons in Sabre p. xi I have had the honour of instructing the following Clubs in both Fencing and Sabre:—The London Fencing Club [etc.].]

1910 Encycl. Brit. X. 252/1 Just as the practice of the ‘small’ or thrusting sword gave rise to two rival schools, the French and the Italian, that of the sabre or cutting sword..became split up into two main systems, Italian and German.

1927 L. Bertrand Cut & Thrust vi. 75 He was..a resplendent figure..waving..a light and fragile silver-plated sabre.

1935 Encycl. Sports, Games & Pastimes 531/1 In fencing with the sabre, the upper part of the body is the sole target, and the hits are made by cuts.

1952 Fencing (‘Know the Game’ Ser.) 5 To hit at foil, épée and sabre, is to strike the opponent with the point of the sword so that it fixes clearly and distinctly and has a character of penetration.

1954 R. Crosnier Fencing with Sabre i. 22 At sabre, the distance between two fencers is such that body or head cannot be hit when the opponent lunges fully.

1971 I. Butykai tr. I. Lukovich Electr. Foil Fencing ii. 166 This is also in support of what is described above about the application in sabre of feints with the body.

1978 G. Wright Illustr. Handbk. Sporting Terms 32 If, in foil and sabre, hits are equal, the bout continues until a deciding hit is landed.

1978 G. Wright Illustr. Handbk. Sporting Terms 33 The ancestors of the sabre include the eastern sabre, the English broadsword, and the cavalry sabre.

1863 T. E. C. Battlefields of the South I. 252 Many more were destroyed with the sabre-bayonet when our men closed in upon them.

1859–62 J. Richardson et al. Museum Nat. Hist. 319 The Brazilian Sabre-bill (Xiphorhynchus procurvus).

c1820 S. Rogers Italy (1839) 216 On his wan cheek a sabre-cut.

1828 M. R. Mitford Our Village III. 49 Against Justice and Constable, treadmill and stocks, the sabre-cut was a protection.

1883 R. L. Stevenson Treasure Island ii. vii. 58 The captain..with his..sabre-cut cheek.

1863 Chambers's Encycl. V. 192/2 The Silvery Hair-tail..is called Sabre-fish in Cuba.

1888 G. B. Goode Amer. Fishes 255 The Cutlass-fish..is known..on the coast of Texas as ‘Sabre-fish’.

1952 J. Gloag Short Dict. Furnit. 404 Sabre leg, a hollow curved leg of rectangular section, so called because of its resemblance to the curve of a cavalry sabre. It was copied from the seats and thrones depicted on Greek and Roman vases, and was introduced towards the end of the 18th century. After 1815, it was sometimes called a Waterloo leg. In chairs of cheap quality the front edge is usually rounded.

1963 Times 2 Mar. 5/4 A small walnut kneehole desk made £220 (Quinney's), six sabre-leg Regency dining chairs £160.

1974 Country Life 5 Dec. (Suppl.) 78/2 A George III Sofa Table..with swept sabre legs.

1928 Daily Express 6 Dec. 5/2 There is no reason for supposing that the child Napoleon will grow up a sabre-rattler.

1975 Times Lit. Suppl. 6 June 625/4 When he [sc. Churchill] came to the rescue of Montagu in the stormy Amritsar debate, he incurred the disgust of the sabre-rattlers.

1922 Weekly Disp. 19 Nov. 8 A policy of adventure, sabre-rattling, and reckless expenditure.

1928 Observer 26 Feb. 16/4 A sabre-rattling gesture against a nation with whom we have been at peace for more than a hundred years.

1932 Bombay Chron. 5 Aug. 6 Henceforward sabre-rattling in Prussia will be severely taboo.

1958 H. M. Hayward & M. Harari tr. B. Pasternak Dr. Zhivago i. iv. 105 You have to swagger about in an officer's uniform too, you have to do your own bit of sabre-rattling.

1973 ‘I. Drummond’ Jaws of Watchdog x. 136 A sabre-rattling pink-hating American.

1977 C. McCullough Thorn Birds ii. 40 Look at the way that saber-rattling Churchill sent our men into something as useless as Gallipoli!

1977 Time 24 Oct. 8/1 Despite saber-rattling rhetoric, a steel war is far from inevitable.

1953 R. J. De Cristoforo Power Tool Woodworking for Everyone v. 179 Saber saws are usually confined to heavy cutting when curves are not too severe.

1976 M. Machlin Pipeline xxviii. 334 The group carried two battery operated saber-saws with hacksaw blades in their chucks.

1980 Sci. Amer. Mar. 29/2 A big saber saw, its diamond blade able to cut a four-foot slab at one pass (beyond the two-foot reach of the biggest rotary blades), requires some 25 horsepower, delivered by hydraulic flow from its engine trailer nearby.

1861 J. Gould Humming Birds II. pl. 43 Campylopterus pampa, Wedge-tailed Sabre-wing.

1893 A. Newton et al. Dict. Birds: Pt. II 446 The group known as ‘Sabre-wings’.