("dress sword", recorded 1468), and Italian used spada da lato "side-sword" or spada da lato a striscia (in modern Italian simply striscia "strip"), sometimes also called Stocco.The Spanish name was registered for the first time in las Coplas de la panadera, by Juan de Mena, written between 1445 and 1450 approximately. Clements (1997) categorizes thrusting swords with poor cutting abilities as rapiers, and swords with both good thrusting and cutting abilities as cut and thrust swords. The term "rapier" is also applied by archaeologists to an unrelated type of Bronze Age sword. Description The word "rapier" generally refers to a relatively long-bladed sword characterized by a protective hilt which is constructed to provide protection for the hand wielding the sword. Some historical rapier samples also feature a broad blade mounted on a typical rapier hilt. The term rapier can be confusing because this hybrid weapon can be categorized as a type of broadsword. While the rapier blade might be broad enough to cut to some degree (but nowhere near that of the wider swords in use around the Middle Ages such as the longsword), it is designed to perform quick and nimble thrusting attacks. The blade might be sharpened along its entire length or sharpened only from the center to the tip (as described by Capoferro). Pallavicini, a rapier master in 1670, strongly advocated using a weapon with two cutting edges. A typical example would weigh and have a relatively long and slender blade of or less in width, or more in length and ending in a sharply pointed tip. The blade length of quite a few historical examples, particularly the Italian rapiers in the early 17th century, is well over and can even reach . The term rapier generally refers to a thrusting sword with a blade longer and thinner than that of the so-called side-sword but much heavier than the small sword, a lighter weapon that would follow in the 18th century and later, but the exact form of the blade and hilt often depends on who is writing and when. It can refer to earlier spada da lato and the similar espada ropera, through the high rapier period of the 17th century through the small sword and duelling swords; thus context is important in understanding what is meant by the word. (The term side-sword, used among some modern historical martial arts reconstructionists, is a translation from the