stramazoun

English

Alternative forms

• stramazon

Etymology

From Italian stramazzone.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /stɹɑ.ma.zuːn/

Noun

stramazoun (plural stramazouns)

1. (obsolete) A direct descending blow with the edge of a sword.

   Synonym: estramacon

   • 1599 (first performance), B. I. [i.e., Ben Jonson], The Comicall Satyre of Euery Man out of His Humor. […], London: […] [Adam Islip] for William Holme, […], published 1600, →OCLC, Act IV, scene iii, signature N, recto:

     But I (being loth to take the deadly advauntage that lay before mee of his left ſide) made a kind of stramazoun, ran him vp to the hilts, through the Doublet, through the Shirt, and yet miſt the skin.

   • 1855, Charles Kingsley, Westward Ho!: Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, […], volume I, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC, page 96:

     Thy fincture, carricade, and sly passata,
     Thy stramazon, and resolute stoccata.

   • 1947, Francisco de Quevedo, “The Visions: The Lovers' Madhouse”, in Roger L'Estrange et al., transl., Quevedo: the choice humorous and satirical works, page 250:

     There were others that made it their glory to pass for Hectors, sons of Priam, brothers of the blade; and talked of nothing but attacks, combats, reverses, stramazons, stoccados; […]

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “stramazoun”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)