a. [f. SWORD sb. + -ED2.] Equipped or armed with a sword.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Gram., xliii. (Z.), 257. Gladius swurd, gladiatus ʓeswurdod.
c. 1000. Vercelli MS., lf. 78 b (in Napier, Contrib. OE. Lexicogr.). Þa cwomon þær semninga tweʓen englas to him ʓescildode & ʓesweordode [Blickl. Hom. 221 ʓesceldode & ʓesperode].
c. 1400. Maundev. (1839), xii. 137. Thei knowen not how to ben clothed; now long, now schort,… now swerded, now daggered.
1470–85. Malory, Arthur, VIII. xxxix. 333. Whan sir Tristram was armed as hym lyked best and wel shelded and swerded.
1629. Milton, Hymn Nativ., xi. The helmed Cherubim And sworded Seraphim.
1634. W. Wood, New Eng. Prosp., II. vii. Being double pistold, and well sworded.
1711. E. Ward, Vulgus Brit., VIII. 87. Such a brave surprizing Train Of sworded Boys, and armed Men.
1798. W. Taylor, in Monthly Mag., V. 367. Nor James, nor sworded Paul, Watch in the cross-shap’d hall; Nor the first martyr of a madding crowd.
1805. Coleridge, Separation, 1. A sworded man whose trade is blood.
1854. Whittier, The Rendition, ii. I thought of Liberty Marched hand-cuffed down that sworded street.
1880. L. Wallace, Ben-Hur, 507. A Caesar helmed and sworded.
b. transf. Having some part resembling a sword.
1681. Grew, Musæum, I. V. i. 87. Whether this Fish be Viviperous, is uncertain; yet being of the Sworded-kind, I have ventur’d here to describe the Head.
1852. Bailey, Festus (ed. 5), 495. A marvel mightier than the sworded star.
1897. F. Thompson, Ode Setting Sun, New Poems 116. Where is the Naiad ’mid her sworded sedge?
