 English "sabre" is recorded from the 1670s, as a direct loan from French, where the "sabre" is an alteration of "sable", which was in turn loaned from German "Säbel", "Sabel" in the 1630s.The German word is on record from the 15th century, loaned from Polish "szabla", which was itself adopted from Hungarian "szabla" (14th century, later "szablya").The spread of the Hungarian word to neighboring European languages took place in the context of the Ottoman wars in Europe of the 15th to 17th centuries.