[f. SWORD sb. + -ER1, after L. gladiātor GLADIATOR.]
1. One who kills another with a sword, an assassin, cut-throat; one who habitually fights with a sword; a gladiator.
1593. Shaks., 2 Hen. VI., IV. i. 135. A Romane Sworder, and Bandetto slaue Murder’d sweet Tully. Ibid. (1606), Ant. & Cl., III. xiii. 31. Cæsar will … be Stag’d to th’ shew Against a Sworder.
1828. Scott, F. M. Perth, vi. I am honest, and so forth, you would say, but a hot-brained brawler, and common sworder or stabber.
1837–42. Hawthorne, Twice-told T. (1851), II. ii. 35. These mercenary sworders and musketeers.
1895. Athenæum, 15 June, 778/2. A naked babe … turns his smiling face to the truculent sworder who is about to execute the behest of the weak Herod.
b. = SWORD-BEARER e.
1537. [Coverdale], Orig. & Sprynge of Sectes, 33. The Swearders. This order weareth whyt also, & .ii. reede sweardes crosse waye vpon a whyte cole [? cote], which signify theyr bloudy knight hode.
2. One skilled in the use of the sword; a swordsman.
1814. Scott, Ld. of Isles, II. xviii. With blade advanced, each Chieftain bold Show’d like the Sworder’s form of old.
1820. Byron, Juan, IV. xlix. The third, a wary, cool old sworder, took The blows upon his cutlass.
1876. Earl Albemarle, Fifty Years Life, I. 106. Handsome in person, symmetrical in form, a splendid horseman, a dexterous sworder.
