1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Scimitar

SCIMITAR, the term generally used of all oriental single-edged curved or crescent-shaped swords (see Sword). The word has appeared in a variety of forms in English, due to Fr. cimetare, It. scimitarra or Span. cimitarra; it has even been corrupted into “smyter,” as if connected with “smite.” Most probably it represents an early Western corruption of the Persian word for a sabre, shamshir or shimshir, which means literally “lion’s claw” (sher, lion, in Hindustani “tiger,” and sham, nail, claw).