scabbard

From Middle English scabard, scauberde, scauberk, scauberke, from Anglo-Norman eschaubert, escalberc, of Germanic origin, perhaps from Frankish *skarberg (“sheath”, literally “blade-protection”), from Proto-Germanic *skēriz (“blade, scissors”) + *bergaz (“shelter, protection, refuge”). See also hauberk.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈskæb.əd/

• Audio (Southern England):

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• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈskæb.ɚd/
• Rhymes: -æbə(ɹ)d
• Hyphenation: scab‧bard

scabbard (plural scabbards)

2. The sheath of a sword.
   • 1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter IX, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:

     I had had to discard my rifle before I commenced the rapid descent of the cliff, so that now I was armed only with a hunting knife, and this I whipped from its scabbard as Kho leaped toward me.

• → Irish: scabaird

scabbard (third-person singular simple present scabbards, present participle scabbarding, simple past and past participle scabbarded)

1. To put an object (especially a sword) into its scabbard.

   Suddenly he scabbarded his sabre.

• Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “scabbard”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.