espadon

espadon - n., a heavy, two-handed, two-edged sword, formerly used by Spanish foot soldiers and by executioners.


That this word popped up as next has nothing whatsoever to do with contemplating rereading The Book of the New Sun. Interestingly, not directly from Spanish but adopted via French -- the deep root is Latin spada, sword. The other French meaning, swordfish, also shows up as a cooking term in web searches, but does not seem to have reached dictionaries.

---L.