 The spelling "saber" became common in American English in the second half of the 19th century.<ref>e.g.Report on the Military Academy at West Point, United States Congressional serial set, Volume 1089, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1861, p. 218.</ref>

The origin of the Hungarian word is unclear.It may itself be a loan from South Slavic (Serbo-Croatian "сабља"), from a Common Slavic "*sablja", which would ultimately derives from a Turkic source.<ref>There are some alternative suggestions, deriving the term from a natively Slavic word; e.g.